A Letter to the Author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Dear Kelly Barnhill,

Before this book becomes pervasive in all third grade classrooms and part of reading bowls and book battles across the nation (I'm too late, aren't I?), I would like to clarify here that I came up with the name Xan FIRST! Or maybe my friend Xan's mom and dad came up with it first and then I decided SECOND that it would be my daughter's name, but let it be known that Xan was my daughter's future name long before you made it the witch's name in The Girl Who Drank the Moon. My friend Xan actually came over last week for our annual pi day party and I showed her the book. She was fascinated! She flipped open to a page and, with mouth agape, exclaimed, "I've never seen my name in print so many times." Or ever? Anyway, I digress.

As cool as Xan, the benevolent witch, and Luna, the enmagicked (cool new word, Kel) young future-witch, and Glerk, the swamp monster/poet/god of the bog, are, my favorite character for the first 2/3 of the book was Antain. Dear, compassionate, intelligent, responsible, humble Antain. You foreshadowed from the very beginning that he would play a pivotal role in someday overthrowing the Elders' government and their terrifying baby-sacrifice tradition, but I was actually really disappointed by his function during the ultimate face-off. He was a strong character with incredible integrity until that final important scene on the knoll. Then suddenly he is this weak, pathetic,  vengeful person. It was so disappointing to me.

I thought the sorrow-eater was a very real-feeling villain. I've had some difficulty of late believing the evil of fictional villains. I have attributed that difficulty to my generally optimistic world view, but after reading this book, I'm convinced that authors are just not developing their bad guys well enough to be believable! The sorrow-eater's back story totally sold her as a real person who had allowed her real problems to slowly change her into a despicable sorrow-eater. Just the idea of sorrow eating was so fresh and new and interesting!

So, Kelly, even though you emasculated (not in the male role sense but in the strength of character sense) my favorite person in your novel, I was impressed with your creation of a credible malefactor with a unique criminal ability and I will still feel comfortable recommending your book to all my pre-teen friends (I have many). But just remember who came up with Xan first.

-Me