Melissa Castrillon & Elisa Paganelli Books

This is a wildly imaginative and highly unusual story (in the best of ways) brimming with wonder, magic, folklore and compassion.

Marinka is a 12-year-old girl who lives with her grandmother, Baba Yaga. Together, they live in a house with chicken legs and move around from place to place, fulfilling their role of ‘guardians of the gate’ by guiding the spirits of the deceased through the gateway between life and death.  Marinka’s destiny appears to be already decided; she is to train to become a Yaga like her grandmother and this means that she is never allowed to go to school or make friends with the living. What follows is an emotive coming-of-age story that sees Marinka working to resolve the tensions between her desires and the path she is expected to follow.

Sophie Anderson is a wonderful storyteller and has very skillfully crafted a compelling and believable magical world that enables readers to explore elements of a Slavic folk story in a fresh and relatable way.

This is a magical and captivating narrative that dances its way through darkness and light, joy and grief and life and death, and it is highly recommended for Years 5 and 6.