Outstanding Creator Awards
  • Home
  • Winners- 2025 Spring Contest
  • About
  • Reviews
  • 2024 BOTY Awards
  • Winners- 2024 Clash of Champions
  • Winners- 2024 Summer Contest
  • Winners- 2024 Creator Classic
  • 2023 BOTY Awards
  • Winners- Clash of Champions 2023
  • Winners- Spring 2023
  • Winners- Winter 2023
  • 2022 BOTY Awards
  • Winners- Fall 2022
  • Winners- Summer 2022
  • Winners- Spring 2022
  • Winners- Winter 2021-2022
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy

Editorial Reviews for Nominees 
​(May Contain Spoilers and Affiliate Links) 

Review of “Wren & the Worry-Vanishing Magic” by Kendra Fogarty

10/6/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)

Wren & the Worry-Vanishing Magic is by far one of the best children's books to ever come through our contest! It sits up there with the likes of Witches, Bats, and Mystical Cats by Julie Chapman, Do You Know the One? by Michelle Bentley, and The Only Blue Crow by Tuula Pere.

What makes this book so great? Well, first of all, the art/illustrations are perfect for the purpose they're meant to serve. They have a very anime-esque, cartoonish appearance that's cute, colorful, and appealing. The characters almost look like they're out of an early Studio Ghibli production like Ponyo or Kiki's Delivery Service (which might have served as a bit of an inspiration for Wren's design). In short, it looks great!

Wren's design is perfect for the purposes of this book! She's appealing, cute, and colorful, but not overwhelmingly so. You can tell that she's the center of this book's attention, but she's not the only person/thing on the screen that commands your attention. Instead, she is usually used like a cursor on your computer to point things out to you (the reader) or to another character. She's a great person, using the things and tricks that she's learned and gained from her experiences in order to help others.

We really fell in love with Wren as a character! She is one of our favorites so far this season for “Best Character!”

Furthermore, you can tell that actual work and effort went into crafting this. Everything looks hand-drawn and hand-colored. The illustrator didn't just copy and paste some graphics, use AI, or do some cell-shading tricks. No, everything here looks genuine and legit.

Secondly, the purpose of this book is commendable and very practical. The book seeks to tackle individual anxieties and problems related to school life such as separation anxiety, performance anxiety, ADHD, perfectionism, and more!

There are practical and useful solutions for all of these, many of which deal with reframing or redirecting our thinking toward positivity and/or acceptance. There are also some interesting tricks like adopting a stone or plushy to help us to cope with stress.

Something else we really loved was the diversity of all of the students portrayed. Not only are the students ethnically and racially diverse, but they all have a diverse range of issues and personality traits. Some are living with issues unrelated to their anxieties. For example, Ashby is wheelchair bound, although it never comes up as her defining issue. Ashby fits right in with everyone else, and we love that.

As an aside, we wouldn't mind a Jasper's Magic Academy novel starring Wren and her classmates on some Harry Potter-esque adventures!

Check this out on Amazon!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • Winners- 2025 Spring Contest
  • About
  • Reviews
  • 2024 BOTY Awards
  • Winners- 2024 Clash of Champions
  • Winners- 2024 Summer Contest
  • Winners- 2024 Creator Classic
  • 2023 BOTY Awards
  • Winners- Clash of Champions 2023
  • Winners- Spring 2023
  • Winners- Winter 2023
  • 2022 BOTY Awards
  • Winners- Fall 2022
  • Winners- Summer 2022
  • Winners- Spring 2022
  • Winners- Winter 2021-2022
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy