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A review by rjbedell
Tales of Mundane Magic, Volume One by Shaina Krevat
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
A wonderful collection of stories that you can curl up with as you would a mug of tea, or a favorite blanket. Just as promised, the characters' adventures don't shock or scare or startle but rather will charm young readers with comfort, familiarity that grows over time, and clever doses of whimsy. I find myself thinking regularly about Half-Moon Ice Cream, open only twice a month and run by a seer who knows your order better than you do. ToMM provides a more compassionate and inclusive approach to a teenage magic world, and the presence of smartphones, web searches to find incantations, and television makes it feel that much more relatable.
The stories get more confident over the course of the book. They would perhaps benefit from doubling down on the fact that they should be read as a collection, rather than standalones: as the same bits of exposition get repeated in each story (Bridget's eye, Gertie's hat, Ziggy's existence, for instance), momentum is sacrificed that could otherwise be used to introduce new worldbuilding elements. But the pace will be comfortable for casual and young readers, and this makes the book easy to put down and come back to later without missing much.
The stories get more confident over the course of the book. They would perhaps benefit from doubling down on the fact that they should be read as a collection, rather than standalones: as the same bits of exposition get repeated in each story (Bridget's eye, Gertie's hat, Ziggy's existence, for instance), momentum is sacrificed that could otherwise be used to introduce new worldbuilding elements. But the pace will be comfortable for casual and young readers, and this makes the book easy to put down and come back to later without missing much.