Greenwild
by Pari Thomson
Summary
Open the door to a spellbinding world where the wilderness is alive and a deep magic rises from the earth itself…
Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it’s up to her to find Ma―but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth.
So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes―she has stepped out of the city and into another world.
This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true. But not only is this land of green magic real, but it also holds the key to finding Daisy’s mother.
And someone wants to destroy it.
Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk with animals, and a cat with an attitude to uncover the truth about who she really is. Only then can she channel the power that will change her whole world . . . and save the Greenwild itself.
My Review
Stopped reading around the 10% mark.
1 star based on the portion I read.
The beginning was painfully slow and failed to hook me. It took far too long for the story to gain any momentum, making it hard to stay engaged early on. On top of that, the messaging felt heavy-handed and overly preachy for a children’s book. Instead of allowing the themes to emerge naturally through the story and characters, it often felt like the book was stopping to deliver lessons directly to the reader.
I prefer when children’s stories focus on strong storytelling, imagination, and character-driven lessons that feel organic. The way this was handled felt more like woke agenda-driven messaging than a meaningful narrative, which pulled me out of the experience and will not work for every family or parent.