The 2017 winner of the Newbery Medal is available to Australian readers in a new paperback edition.

Xan is a good and kind witch. Each year she makes a journey to rescue a child who’s been left in the woods as a sacrifice by the people of an oppressive and gloomy town, delivering it to a new, loving home. One year Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight. The baby becomes magical and Xan, naming the child Luna, adopts and raises her as family, alongside a tiny dragon with a giant heart and an ancient monster/poet of the bog.

As Luna grows up, her magic is irrepressible – and truths begin to emerge about the place and people she came from. There’s so much to love in this vivid, heartening and utterly absorbing book that champions the power of hope, love and rebellion in the face of fear and cruelty.

Kim Gruschow is the children’s book buyer at Readings St Kilda.