Maddigan's Fantasia

Author: Margaret Mahy

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Publication Year: 2007

Lexile: 880L (This book is not in the Lexile Book Database. I used the Lexile Analyzer to get this value.)

Most of the readers will be: Late elementary to early middle school girls.

Reader's Advisory: For another epic in which the hero travels to many strange places try Robin Lister's retelling of The Odyssey.

Summary: Garland Maddigan is a performer in a traveling circus. She lives in a time called the Remaking. The world is mending itself after the Destruction and the Chaos. Strange things are happening in the Fantasia. First Garland's father, Ferdy, the Ringmaster, is killed by Road Rats. Then three children join up with the Fantasia: Timon, Eden, and their baby sister Jewel. As they all try to decide what to do next, Garland's mother Maddie announces that the Fantasia has been given a mission by the great city of Solis. Solis needs a solar converter that has been created by the brilliant minds in the city of Newton. The Fantasia wants to do their part in remaking the world, but Timon and Eden assure Garland that getting the solar converter to Solis is more important than she could have imagined. They have traveled to her time from the future, and in that future, Solis is run by an evil creature called the Nennog. Only getting the converter to Solis by the summer solstice can keep the Nennog from coming into power.

My favorite passage:

"Hey!" cried Boomer, softly at first. "Hey! Wake up!" Something about their sleep was intimidating, and he dared not speak very loudly. Then, with relief, he saw movement. Timon! Timon was sitting up...sitting up and blinking...rubbing his hands down over his face...standing up...staring around...then moving across the room toward Eden.
"Timon!" Boomer exclaimed, grateful that he was no longer alone.
But Timon did not turn. It seemed he had not heard him. Boomer slipped around Garland's feet and ran toward Timon, planning to grab his arm and show him (triumphantly) the stolen key. But Timon walked past one of the lamps, and the lamplight, though soft and dim, briefly lit up his face. Boomer stopped abruptly, for Timon's expression frightened him. They eyes, open but narrowed, flickered with a greenish light. Timon's mouth had thinned into a rigid line, and its corners were not so much turned down as dragged down, as if by some strange muscular spasm. There in the shadows of that cold, straw-filled room, Timon had become and evil alien, reaching out to his brother's throat as if he might strangle him.
"Don't," said Boomer, reaching out too...reaching out, though he was terrified again, to drag at those taut, crooked fingers. Timon half turned, swinging out his right arm as he did so, striking Boomer's side just below his waist. It was as if he had been hit with a plank of wood. Boomer toppled sideways as Timon struck again, but this time he thumped not Boomer but Boomer's drum, which sounded a single beat...a curious signal...an announcement of some kind. At the sound of that single beat, the dreadful, set expression on Timon's face seemed to melt away. (pg 220-221)

What I really think:
This could have been a really great book if there were no time traveling.

I like Garland's character development. She isn't so bratty that the reader doesn't like her, but bratty enough that we feel uncomfortable with her when she realizes how she has been acting.

I also like that each town has their own unique problems. Hopefully we can learn from their mistakes. Gramth has a dark secret: children are being stolen away and forced to work in underground mines. The people of Greentown live in a mind-weed induced fantasy, and are being eaten by the servants handing out the mind-weed! Newton's children have organized and the adults don't reign them in because they are so grateful to have children at all.

But this time travel business... I admit that my main problem is that I have my own ideas about how time travel works and when it is written differently, I don't believe in it and find it frustrating. Perhaps this is simply a personal problem. But I struggled through time travel books when I was twelve for the same reason, so maybe some other young readers feel the same way I do.