A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is a 2020 young adult fantasy novel by Ursula Vernon, under her pseudonym T.

Kingfisher’s latest in a run of excellent middle grade fantasies featuring intrepid children and young teens, including Summer in Orcus and Minor Mage. It’s not an easy life, but Mona loves being an apprentice baker … and there’s the fact that her magical powers only work with bread products.If you are looking for something a little fun and uplifting this should work just great for you even if it is Middle-Grade. It certainly doesn't hurt anyone to be told fictionally that evil should not ultimately succeed, that they can't leave it for others to fight, good people do die, and that, by inference, the hero, as well as the reader will have to work hard to defeat their own particular evil/s. Bob is a scene stealer, which is something I never would have guessed I would say about a gloppy bucket of yeast and dough that extends tentacles. We ask all users help us create a welcoming environment by reporting posts/comments that do not follow the subreddit rules.

Story gets told, ideas get presented, world gets saved, and just keep the sourdough starter firmly in place or it'll get weird ideas. Mona is such a superb protagonist – having been orphaned and then looked after by her aunt and uncle, her life is jogging along quite nicely. The situation shouldn’t have been allowed to get so far off the rails that a 14-year-old is not just their best but their only hope.Which is ridiculous and insane and she’s very aware of the fact that there are lots of adults who weren’t adulting very well at all.

Definitely a book to check out if you’re feeling YA fantasy with a nostalgic feel that is still all it’s own. Her talent is in convincing dough that it wants to do what SHE wants it to do, so it rises properly and it doesn’t burn. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy and the Eisner, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, Nebula, Alfie, WSFA, Coyotl and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target.I very much hope that Kingfisher finds that her lovely heroine won’t leave her alone – and that she, too, misses Mona. Bob the carnivorous sourdough starter was a definite favorite, along with the gingerbread man familiar and Spindle the pickpocket were the main secondaries, along with Knackering Molly who can raise dead horses and is a touch not all there, and Mina’s aunt and uncle. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is even better than that, it’s a YA that can be read and very much enjoyed by adults.