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• The Door at the End of the World Harper (New York, NY), 2019
• Wicked Marigold Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2024

1. Wicked marigold LCCN 2023945838 Type of material Book Personal name Carlson, Caroline (Children's author), author. Main title Wicked marigold / Caroline Carlson. Published/Produced Somerville : Candlewick Press, 2024. Projected pub date 2407 Description pages cm ISBN 9781536230499 (hardcover) (ebook) Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. The door at the end of the world LCCN 2018013449 Type of material Book Personal name Carlson, Caroline (Children's author), author. Main title The door at the end of the world / Caroline Carlson ; [map art by Virginia Allyn]. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019] Description 285 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm ISBN 9780062368300 (hardback) CALL NUMBER PZ7.C21644 Doo 2019 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• Caroline Carlson website - https://carolinecarlsonbooks.com/

  Caroline Carlson is the author of funny and fantastical books for young readers, including The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, The World’s Greatest Detective, The Door at the End of the World, and Wicked Marigold. Her novels have won accolades from the New York Times, the American Booksellers Association, Bank Street College of Education, the American Library Association, and Junior Library Guild, among others. She is the children’s book columnist for the website Literary Hub.

  Caroline holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her family.

• Fantastic Fiction -

  Caroline Carlson

  Caroline Carlson holds an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives with her husband in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania amidst many stacks of books.

  Genres: Children's Fiction

  New and upcoming books
  July 2024

  thumb
  Wicked Marigold

  Series
  Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates
  1. Magic Marks The Spot (2013)
  2. The Terror of the Southlands (2014)
  3. The Buccaneers' Code (2015)
  4. Magic Ahoy! (2015)
  thumbthumbthumbthumb

  Novels
  The World's Greatest Detective (2017)
  The Door at the End of the World (2019)
  Wicked Marigold (2024)

• School Library Journal - https://teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2024/07/18/fracturing-a-fairy-tale-a-guest-post-by-caroline-carlson-the-author-of-wicked-marigold/

  QUOTED: "When I began to draft my new middle grade novel, Wicked Marigold, I wanted to write my own tribute to the fairy tales I still adored, full of magic and adventure, with the promise of a happy ending. But I also wanted to tell young readers the truth. I was writing against the backdrop of the pandemic and the American election, trying to make some sense of an incredibly complex world, and I couldn’t bring myself to spin a straightforward story of good versus evil that every kid on the planet would immediately recognize as nonsense."

  Fracturing a Fairy Tale, a guest post by Caroline Carlson, the author of WICKED MARIGOLD
  July 18, 2024 by Karen Jensen, MLS Leave a Comment

  My daughter has been a book lover since birth. Even as an infant, she’d settle in her crib only if I read to her from whatever book I happened to have on hand, and she’d start fussing whenever I tried to stop. It became clear to me pretty quickly that I needed a readaloud that was both child-friendly and long. I dug out the anthology of Grimm’s fairy tales that we’d received as a shower gift, and at every naptime, I told my daughter stories.

  They were familiar to me, if not to my tiny audience. “Hansel and Gretel,” “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” “Rumpelstiltskin”: these were the tales I’d grown up reading, too, so many times that I could have recited them by heart. As a child, I’d fallen in love with fairy tales like a seventh son gone head over heels for a youngest princess. But as a parent reading to my own child, I couldn’t help making my own amendments and annotations as I fought my way through the brambles of story. How happy isa fairy-tale ending, after all, if you’re forced to marry the soldier who’s been spying on you or the king who’s only interested in the gold you can’t actually spin? When you’re a child whose parents have abandoned you in the woods, are you really going to be grateful to return home? “These are old stories,” I explained to my daughter, “told by a certain group of people who understood the world in a certain way. This isn’t how things work now, okay?”

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  She burped as if she understood.

  For almost as long as I’ve loved fairy tales, I’ve been trying to complicate them. Maybe that’s because if you don’t complicate them, they become harder to love. The shape of familiar Western European fairy tales can feel rigid and unwelcoming, full of porcelain-skinned and golden-haired protagonists whose inherent goodness guarantees them a happily-ever-after ending in the form of a heterosexual marriage. Fairy-tale worlds are full of moral certainty; there is pure good and pure evil, and good will always triumph. After some struggle, the hero will persevere and reach their happy ending, after which nothing much will change, certainly not for the worse. As we grow older, we begin to understand that the shape of fairy tales isn’t much like the shape of life.

  But we read fairy tales when we’re very young, and these shapes become familiar to us—so familiar that when our lives drift off an enchanted course, we might instinctively blame ourselves for failing to be the heroes of our own stories. If we’re not beautiful or strong or inherently good, what have we done wrong? If we make mistakes, if we sometimes act like more of an evil fairy than a perfect princess, what narratives are we allowed to tell about ourselves? What are we supposed to do when our moments of triumph turn out to be temporary? There’s no guide for that sort of thing in the Grimm anthology. Is it possible for us to hold onto our love of fairy tales and also fall in love with our own messy, complicated stories?

  When I began to draft my new middle grade novel, Wicked Marigold, I wanted to write my own tribute to the fairy tales I still adored, full of magic and adventure, with the promise of a happy ending. But I also wanted to tell young readers the truth. I was writing against the backdrop of the pandemic and the American election, trying to make some sense of an incredibly complex world, and I couldn’t bring myself to spin a straightforward story of good versus evil that every kid on the planet would immediately recognize as nonsense. So I built my fairy-tale world, complete with a impeccably good princess and some truly vile villains—and into this world I dropped an eleven-year-old girl named Marigold, a kid so thoroughly human that the fairy-tale world simply doesn’t know how to accommodate her.

  Marigold tries her best to be good; she really does. After all, her parents, the king and queen, have explained to her many times that if you’re not good, you must be wicked. (That’s just how things work in the Cacophonous Kingdoms.) But Marigold isn’t as beautiful or enchanting as her perfect older sister, Rosalind, and when she runs away to live with the evil wizard Torville, she quickly discovers that she’s not callous enough to be truly wicked, either. Even the exercises in the wizardly self- help book Evil in Twenty-Three Minutes A Day don’t seem to help. No matter how ferociously she scowls or how many times she visualizes her heart shriveling up like a dried currant, Marigold can’t get Torville and his imp to understand how truly villainous she must be—or how villainous she has to be in order to fit into the traditional storybook structure that frames her life. When her wicked spells backfire and wizard Torville is transformed into a blob of glop, Marigold finds herself ensnared in a magical tangle from which she can escape only by being not perfectly good or perfectly wicked, but perfectly herself. And she discovers along the way that the Cacophonous Kingdoms might be more morally complex than she’d originally thought.

  “Bluebells may not spring up under your footsteps,” Torville tells Marigold toward the end of the book, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t do a great deal of good in the world if you choose to—or a great deal of wickedness, if you’d prefer.” It’s not exactly a fairy-tale lesson, but it’s one that I think is valuable to pass along to young readers. The narratives of our own lives aren’t shaped by storybook forces. No matter who we are, we can choose to do good, or at least to attempt it. And even when we’re less than perfect in those attempts, we are still worthwhile. This is the world as I choose to understand it, and this is the kind of story I hope to spin in books for children, borrowing the magic of old-fashioned fairy tales to help kids think in more complex ways about their own lives—and to give them hope for a new, more enduring kind of happily ever after.

  Caroline Carlson is the author of funny and fantastical books for young readers, including The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, The World’s Greatest Detective, and The Door at the End of the World. Her new book, Wicked Marigold, was named one of the best books of summer 2024 by People Magazine. Caroline is the children’s book columnist for the website Literary Hub. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

  Author photo credit:

  A.R. Capetta

  Website/social media links:

  Website: www.carolinecarlsonbooks.com

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinecarlsonbooks

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolinecarlsonbooks

• Stimola Literary Studio, Inc. - https://www.stimolaliterarystudio.com/caroline-carlson

  Caroline Carlson

  Agent: Allison Hellegers
  Caroline Carlson is the author of funny and fantastical books for young readers, including the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, The World's Greatest Detective, and The Door at the End of the World.

  Her novels have won accolades from the New York Times, the American Booksellers Association, Bank Street College of Education, the American Library Association, and Junior Library Guild, among others.

  Caroline holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her family.

• El Space–The Blog of L. Marie - https://lmarie7b.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/check-this-out-the-door-at-the-end-of-the-world/

  QUOTED: "The Door at the End of the World came to me in a way that most stories don’t: It started with the title. I’d been wondering what it would be like to write a book about the end of the world, and then I thought, What if the end of the world isn’t an event? What if it’s a place? What if it’s where our world meets the next world over?"

  Check This Out: The Door at the End of the World
  Posted on April 17, 2019
  Hello! Help yourself to a breakfast pastry and have a seat. With me on the blog today is the awesome Caroline Carlson, who is here to talk about her middle grade science fiction novel, The Door at the End of the World, which debuted on April 9.

  The Door at the End of the World was published by HarperCollins. Like the cover? The cover artist is Poly Bernatene.

  Caroline is represented by Sarah Davies. She also is a member of steaMG. See this post about that organization. Be sure to stay till the end for information on a giveaway of this book. Yeah!!!!! Now let’s talk to Caroline!

  El Space: Four quick facts about yourself?
  Caroline: (1) I love to bake because baking feels like the exact opposite of writing a book: you just follow the instructions in the recipe, and a few hours later, you have a finished product! Books don’t work that way at all.
  (2) My least favorite noise is the sound that Styrofoam makes when you lift it out of a cardboard box.
  (3) When the zombie apocalypse comes, I would prefer to be one of the first people eaten so I don’t have to deal with all the stress of trying to survive in a zombie-ridden dystopia.

  (4) I have been told that I have natural ghost-repelling qualities.

  El Space: Wow! An awesome ability to have! You’ve written books about pirates and detectives. Now you’ve written a portal story. C.S. Lewis once said that a faun carrying an umbrella was the image that started his writing of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. How did The Door at the End of the World come to be? Is this a stand-alone or the start of a series?

  Caroline: The Door at the End of the World came to me in a way that most stories don’t: It started with the title. I’d been wondering what it would be like to write a book about the end of the world, and then I thought, What if the end of the world isn’t an event? What if it’s a place? What if it’s where our world meets the next world over? And what if there were a door between the two worlds that you could travel through? Would you need a passport? Would someone stand guard at the end of the world to make sure people weren’t sneaking through the door illegally? What if there were a whole series of worlds, all connected by doors, each with its own unique characteristics? The story really took off from there. It’s a stand-alone novel, but I barely scratched the surface of some of the eight worlds my characters visit, so maybe I’ll set another story in this universe someday.

  El Space: Without giving any spoilers, what can you tell us about your world building and how you came to develop characters like Lucy and the worlds mentioned in your book?
  Caroline: There are eight different worlds in the book: a magical world, a high-tech world, a world covered in oceans, another world that’s full of cows, and our own world, just to name a few. Each of the worlds is special in its own way, but the world called Southeast, where a lot of the action is set, is a little bit . . . ordinary. Lucy, the heroine, is a little bit ordinary too. It’s her job to file papers and stamp passports at the end of the world, but she doesn’t get to go on any grand adventures, and she knows she only got the job because her parents and her older brother are very famous and important. Over the course of the story, though, Lucy meets a couple other ordinary kids, and they discover together that even though they’re not famous or important, they’re capable of doing truly extraordinary things—like saving eight whole worlds from destruction.

  El Space: That sounds awesome! How did the process of writing this book compare to the writing of The World’s Greatest Detective or any of your Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates books?
  Caroline: I’m usually the sort of writer who plans a book before I start writing. I outlined each of the three novels in my Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates series, and I had to make an extensive and complicated outline for The World’s Greatest Detective, which is a murder mystery. When you write a mystery, you need to know exactly how the crime is committed, how the criminal will cover their tracks, where all the clues and red herrings will appear, and how the detective will put together all the pieces to arrive at the solution. I can’t imagine writing a book like that without planning in advance!

  When I wrote The Door at the End of the World, though, I didn’t outline at all. Most days I’d sit down to write without knowing what was going to happen next in the story. For a writer like me, who loves structure and planning, it was kind of a terrifying experience. But it was also invigorating, like reading a favorite book for the very first time. I didn’t know what would happen on the next page, but I kept writing because I was excited to find out. Fortunately, it all came together in the end, and a few rounds of thorough revision with my editor helped to make the story nice and tidy.

  El Space: Kirkus likens your book to those by Diana Wynne Jones and Eva Ibbotson, How do those comparisons make you feel?
  Caroline: That was one of the nicest compliments I’ve received on my writing. Both women are among my literary heroes, and Diana Wynne Jones’s work in particular was a huge inspiration for The Door at the End of the World. As a young reader, I sped through her Chrestomanci books—a series of stories set in linked parallel worlds that were painted so vividly—I felt as if I’d visited those magical worlds myself. The worlds-wide adventure that my own characters embark on is very much intended as a tribute to Diana, and I hope that readers who love her books as much as I do will enjoy this story, too.

  El Space: What will you work on next?
  Caroline: I’m not sure what my next published book will be, but right now I’m working on another middle grade fantasy novel that’s full of magicians, spies in hot-air balloons, and an opinionated talking goat.

  Thanks, Caroline, for being my guest.

  Looking for Caroline? Check out her website, Facebook author page, Twitter, Instagram, and steaMG.

  The Door at the End of the World can be purchased at your local independent bookstore, as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, and Powell’s. But two of you—that’s right, two—will be given a copy of this book, simply by commenting. Winner to be announced on the day after Easter—April 22!

  Henry is hoping that this door will take him to one of the worlds described in Caroline’s book. I fear that he is doomed to disappointment.

  P.S. My heart goes out to the citizens of Paris and those all over the world saddened by the recent fire at Notre Dame Cathedral.

• YA Books Central - https://www.yabookscentral.com/author-chat-with-caroline-carlson-wicked-marigold-plus-giveaway-us-only/

  QUOTED: "I watched the Disney movie Tangled with my daughter, who was about three years old at the time. As Rapunzel and her parents shared a joyful reunion on our TV screen, I started to wonder, What if Rapunzel had had a younger sister—a sister who’d never known her, a sister who’d gotten used to being the only princess in the kingdom for all those years? Would she be feeling quite so joyful in this moment?"

  Author Chat with Caroline Carlson (Wicked Marigold), Plus Giveaway~ US ONLY!
  July 16, 2024No Comments
  Written by Cherokee Crum, Staff Reviewer
  Posted in Authors, Giveaways, Interviews, News & Updates
  Today we are very excited to share an interview with author Caroline Carlson!

  Read on to learn more about the author, the book, and a giveaway!

  Meet the Author: Caroline Carlson

  Caroline Carlson is also the author of the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, The World’s Greatest Detective, and The Door at the End of the World. Her novels have won accolades from the New York Times, the American Booksellers Association, Bank Street College of Education, the American Library Association, and Junior Library Guild. She holds an MFA in writing for children from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives with her family in Pittsburgh.

  Website * Instagram * Threads * Facebook

  About the Book: Wicked Marigold

  A People Magazine Best Books for Summer Selection

  “A richly imagined middle-grade examination of sibling dynamics with plenty of endearing fantasy elements.” —People Magazine

  In a funny and charming fantastical romp, overlooked Princess Marigold is nothing like her perfect, just-returned sister—so she runs away to an evil wizard’s tower to prove her wickedness.

  Princess Marigold—who hadn’t yet been born when the remarkable Princess Rosalind was kidnapped—is eleven when the unthinkable happens: her older sister escapes her captivity and comes home. Marigold has always known she’s not as good, sweet, or kind as the sister everyone adores, but amid the celebration of Rosalind’s return, Marigold realizes something new: if Princess Rosalind is good, then Princess Marigold must be wicked. And there’s no place for wickedness in the kingdom. When Marigold tries to find a new place for herself in an evil wizard’s fortress, though, the results are disastrous. Before she’s even learned to cackle or scowl properly, she gets tangled up in a magical plot to ruin all the Cacophonous Kingdoms. Is Marigold too wicked to make things right? Or can she—with the help of a kitchen boy, a well-dressed imp, and a grumpy blob of glop—find her own way to restore peace? This endearing fantasy will have princess and anti-princess fans alike chuckling and cheering.

  ~Author Chat~

  YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

  Most of my books begin to form when a few different ideas I’m interested in start to bump into each other in my imagination in interesting ways, and that’s how Wicked Marigold got its start, too.

  First, I watched the Disney movie Tangled with my daughter, who was about three years old at the time. As Rapunzel and her parents shared a joyful reunion on our TV screen, I started to wonder, What if Rapunzel had had a younger sister—a sister who’d never known her, a sister who’d gotten used to being the only princess in the kingdom for all those years? Would she be feeling quite so joyful in this moment?

  Second, I read an article about slime molds. These are organisms that look a lot like blobs of glop, but unlike most blobs of glop, they can join together to move around, and they really like eating oats. I knew right away that I had to include a slime mold-inspired character in my next book—and indeed, there’s a yellow blob of glop in Wicked Marigold that shares a few qualities with slime molds, particularly their fondness for oatmeal.

  Third, I asked myself how Rapunzel’s younger sister might end up encountering a yellow blob of glop, and the answer to that admittedly strange question was the creative spark I needed to start writing.

  YABC: Which came first, the title or the novel?

  The novel came first, as novels always do for me. My brain is a little allergic to titles (including chapter titles, of which there are twenty-six in this book—they took forever to come up with!). But I love the simple efficiency of Wicked Marigold’s title: Putting a spooky, shivery word like Wicked right next to a flowery, pretty word like Marigold lets readers know that the book they’re about to read will upend their expectations and hopefully make them laugh.

  YABC: What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?

  My favorite scenes to write are ones that feel like comedy set pieces: self-contained moments of joy and silliness that you can almost imagine actors performing onstage. When I write that kind of scene, I like to dare myself to be a little goofier, a little less sensible with each revision. There are several very silly scenes in Wicked Marigold, but one of my favorites also happens to be the favorite of a couple young readers I’ve talked to. It involves many different kinds of birds performing a song about how perfect Princess Rosalind is, driving Marigold to take rash and drastic action against both Rosalind and the birds. The scene’s action was tricky to write—I always find it challenging to describe physical comedy clearly—but I loved composing the song.

  YABC: Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

  One thing I’ve learned that’s helped me through many drafts is that when I’m dreading working on a particular scene, that’s not writer’s block or laziness. It usually means there’s something about the story structure that’s not working out as I’d hoped. Even if I plot a book’s scenes in advance, sometimes those scenes just don’t come together the way I thought they would, and feeling uninspired and unexcited about writing is my brain’s way of telling me that I need to back up a little and take my story in a different direction. When I was starting out, I’d try to bash my way through those uninspiring scenes, thinking that I could use every blunt object in my writers’ craft toolbox to make them work. Now, I have no compunctions about cutting entire chapters that don’t make me smile. If I’m not excited about writing a scene in my own book, how can I expect readers to be excited about reading it?

  YABC: What do you like most about the cover of the book?

  I would tape the cover of Wicked Marigold to my eyeballs if I could figure out how to do it safely; that’s how much I love looking at it. It’s illustrated by Jennifer M. Potter, and it’s full of wonderful details from the book. My absolute favorite detail, though, is on the back cover, so you’ll have to pick up your own copy if you want to see it: It’s an illustration of the evil wizard Torville, transformed into a blob of glop and piloting a little biplane that Marigold builds for him toward the end of the book. The expression Jennifer’s given him is this indescribable mix of exhilaration and terror that makes me laugh whenever I see it.

  YABC: What’s a book you’ve recently read and loved?

  I read Erin Bow’s Simon Sort of Says on vacation a few months ago and couldn’t stop turning pages. It should be required reading for any writer who wants to learn how to balance serious subject matter with a light narrative voice and plenty of humor. It’s a real craft master class. It’s also the sort of book I would have loved just as much as a child as I do now.

  YABC: What’s up next for you?

  I’m working on another middle grade novel, still with a bit of magic but set in a world that’s more like our own, which is unfamiliar writing terrain for me. It’s about being an anxious kid, which is not unfamiliar terrain for me at all! It asks the question, If you could turn back time by five minutes to erase your mistakes, would everything in your life be okay? It’s also a book about stargazing and hiking and spies and art and folktales and community and hot chocolate, and I can’t wait to talk more about it soon.

  YABC: What advice do you have for new writers?

  Remember that you’re not only a writer; you’re a person with many interests, and you should give yourself permission to be that sort of person. Study writing craft, for sure, and read anything you can get your hands on, but don’t be afraid to explore gardening or foreign policy or summer biathlon or the history of trade in the Black Sea region or anything else that gets your brain fizzing. Story ideas will bloom from your weird obsessions and fascinations, so let yourself nurture them—that’s the work of writing, too.

  Title: Wicked Marigold

  Author: Caroline Carlson

  Release Date: July 16, 2024

  Publisher: Candlewick Press

  ISBN-10: 1536230499

  ISBN-13: 9781536230499

  Genre: Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy

  Age Range: 8-12

QUOTED: "clever, quirky, and cozy."

Wicked Marigold

by Caroline Carlson

Intermediate Candlewick 256 pp.

7/24 9781536230499 $17.99

e-book ed. 9781536237573 $17.99

Eleven-year-old Princess Marigold has grown up in the shadow of her perfect older sister, Rosalind, who was abducted by a wizard long before Marigold was born. When Rosalind miraculously finds her way home, Marigold is ambivalent and rashly decides that she's wicked and doesn't belong in the kingdom. She runs away to a place where she can embrace her so-called wickedness: the fortress of the wizard who held Rosalind captive for fifteen years. She can stay with Wizard Torville and his imp, Pettifog, if she passes a test to prove that she's evil: "I'll give you seven days to do something so vile that even an imp can't deny your wicked nature." Hijinks ensue (including Marigold mistakenly turning Torville into a sentient blob). When a pair of wizards plots to destroy a peace treaty among the kingdoms, Marigold must reckon with what it really means to be wicked. What began as sisterly revenge becomes part of a complicated web of spells that could undo the Cacophonous Kingdoms altogether. Carlson's deftly told story tackles questions of good versus evil and sibling bonds with a cast of oddball creatures and lots of humor. Clever, quirky, and cozy.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
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Beermann, McKinney. "Wicked Marigold." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 100, no. 4, July-Aug. 2024, p. 122. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A803844859/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6ee29288. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

QUOTED: "a witty and engaging anti-fairy-tale adventure."

Carlson, Caroline WICKED MARIGOLD Candlewick (Children's None) $17.99 7, 16 ISBN: 9781536230499

A displaced princess runs away from home in order to be wicked, only to struggle with undoing a complicated curse.

Marigold is nothing like her older sister, Rosalind, who was the perfect princess before she was tragically abducted by the evil Wizard Torville. Intrigued by tales of nefarious characters, such as the Twice-Times Witch, Marigold has always been better at building contraptions than soothing angry dragons with lovely singing. Her life is upended, however, when Rosalind miraculously returns, causing Marigold to feel like she no longer belongs. In a refreshing reversal of classic fairy-tale tropes, Marigold decides that instead of committing to the impossible task of being good, she should dedicate herself to being villainous--and who better to teach her than the wizard who originally kidnapped her sister? But being wicked is harder than it seems, since Marigold doesn't have a natural talent for magic. To make things worse, a miscast curse now threatens her newfound way of life: If Marigold doesn't work with best friend Collin, a kitchen boy, to set things right, her life (and career as a villain!) may be cut short. Full of snappy humor, delightful wordplay, and quirky characters--a tentacled, people-eating creature called the Thing, a spiffy imp, and a reticent blob--this book is a whimsical exploration of belonging and sibling relationships. Characters read white.

A witty and engaging anti-fairy-tale adventure. (Fantasy. 8-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Carlson, Caroline: WICKED MARIGOLD." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A791876759/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dd5d7b4c. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

QUOTED: "Humorous subversions of traditional fantasy tropes make this an insightful tale of nature versus nurture and good versus evil."

Wicked Marigold

Caroline Carlson. Candlewick, $17.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-5362-3049-9

Mechanically minded 11-year-old Marigold, the princess of Imbervale, lives in the shadow of her "perfect" older sister Rosalind, despite Rosalind having been kidnapped by the evil Wizard Torville before Marigold was born. So, when Rosalind escapes captivity and returns to the kingdom, Marigold chafes at being ignored and overlooked. Dubbed a "wicked child" after a party mishap, Marigold takes it to heart and runs away to Wizard Torville's keep, determined to become his apprentice. But her attempts to prove her wickedness backfire, transforming Torville into a sentient--and cranky--pile of glop. With the imminent arrival of assorted evildoers anticipating their regularly scheduled feasting and mayhem, Marigold must find a way to undo her magical handiwork while maintaining the pretense that the wicked wizard is fine, simply indisposed. Carlson (The Door at the End of the World) tempers astute depictions of Marigold's experience in trying to live up to unrealistic expectations with capricious magic, strange monsters, and complex characters. Humorous subversions of traditional fantasy tropes make this an insightful tale of nature versus nurture and good versus evil. Marigold is depicted on the cover with brown skin. Ages 8-12. Agent: Allison Hellegers, Stimola Literary Studio. (July)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Wicked Marigold." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 15, 15 Apr. 2024, p. 57. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A799108496/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c3c68f40. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

QUOTED: "Well-rounded characters beautifully flesh out the cast and offer glimpses into the expansive world building."

The Door at the End of the World.

By Caroline Carlson.

Apr. 2019.304p. Harper, $16.99 (9780062368300). Gr. 3-7.

As the Gatekeepers deputy, unassuming Lucy Eberslee makes sure travelers' papers are in order when they try to step through the door joining the Southeast and East worlds. When the Gatekeeper fails to return from a quick maintenance trip, Lucy must break one of the most important rules and open the door herself. But instead of finding the Gatekeeper, a boy named Arthur, who has no knowledge of any worlds except his own, falls through. Unable --to reopen the door, Lucy and Arthur journey to search for the reasons behind the disappearances of the Gatekeepers and the closure of the worldgates. In the process, Lucy discovers that there is much more to her than being unnoticed. Filled with clever, endearing characters and packed with action, this solid fantasy provides a sweeping mystery that will keep readers guessing. As the story progresses, Lucy begins to transform from a young girl used to being overlooked into someone who lifts her head high, unafraid to stand up to those responsible for the chaos, even if that includes someone close to her. Young readers who consider themselves ordinary might see themselves in Lucy, who struggles with how she is perceived. Well-rounded characters beautifully flesh out the cast and offer glimpses into the expansive world building. This empowering adventure emphasizes bravery and the joy of taking a bold leap.--Selenia Paz

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Paz, Selenia. "The Door at the End of the World." Booklist, vol. 115, no. 14, 15 Mar. 2019, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A580343920/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=850ab5fb. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

QUOTED: "joyfully chaotic."

Carlson, Caroline THE DOOR AT THE END OF THE WORLD Harper/HarperCollins (Children's Fiction) $16.99 4, 9 ISBN: 978-0-06-236830-0

An unremarkable 13-year-old deputy Gatekeeper must leave her post stamping blue travel applications and pink customs declarations when a catastrophe threatens all of the worlds.

Lucy loves being organized, which makes her supremely well-suited for her job at the end of the world, at the door leading from her world of Southeast to the neighboring East. She knows that she's not particularly clever or interesting, and she worries that she got this job because her well-connected parents pulled some strings, but nevertheless she loves working for the cranky, white-haired old Gatekeeper. She doesn't want any trouble, so it's all the more terrible when the Gatekeeper disappears and the door to East jams shut--right after a strange boy tumbles through it. Arthur, a bespectacled 15-year-old, hadn't even known there were other worlds besides his own East (home of exotic places such as Sacramento, Vladivostok, and Auckland). Together, Lucy and Arthur begin a quest to tell the surely trustworthy authorities about the missing Gatekeeper and the broken door. Along with grumpy Rosemary, deputy of another missing gatekeeper--isn't she?--they unravel a plot that threatens commerce and travel across all eight worlds. The characters are assumed white and have names that evoke classic English-language literature. With its low-key comedy and grace notes such as bees that communicate by spelling, the book recalls earlier adventures by Diana Wynne Jones and Eva Ibbotson.

Joyfully chaotic. (Fantasy. 10-12)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Carlson, Caroline: THE DOOR AT THE END OF THE WORLD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2019. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A573768615/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a1471297. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

QUOTED: "a new and entertaining fantasy."

CARLSON, Caroline. The Door at the End of the World. 304p. HarperCollins/Harper. Apr. 2019. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780062368300.

Gr 4-7--When Lucy, the gatekeeper's deputy, goes to work, she discovers that the gatekeeper has vanished and that the door to the next world is broken. When she opens the door to investigate, a boy from another world falls in. What has happened and who caused it? As they team up with the daughter of an interworld smuggler, they realize that not only have all the gatekeepers from all the worlds disappeared, but that the original gatecutting scissors are also gone. There are many twists and turns and not all is as it seems: there are bees that can spell, thistle-backed thrunts that kill, and shrink-wrap that cap make large objects portable. Fans of fantasy such as Brandon Mull's "Fablehaven" series will enjoy this adventure set in different worlds. VERDICT A new and entertaining fantasy for middle grade readers that is just waiting for a screenplay to be written.--Deanna McDaniel, Genoa Middle School, OH

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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McDaniel, Deanna. "CARLSON, Caroline. The Door at the End of the World." School Library Journal, vol. 65, no. 3, Apr. 2019, p. 71. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A581175259/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6b6d192e. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

Beermann, McKinney. "Wicked Marigold." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 100, no. 4, July-Aug. 2024, p. 122. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A803844859/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6ee29288. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024. "Carlson, Caroline: WICKED MARIGOLD." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A791876759/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dd5d7b4c. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024. "Wicked Marigold." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 15, 15 Apr. 2024, p. 57. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A799108496/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c3c68f40. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024. Paz, Selenia. "The Door at the End of the World." Booklist, vol. 115, no. 14, 15 Mar. 2019, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A580343920/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=850ab5fb. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024. "Carlson, Caroline: THE DOOR AT THE END OF THE WORLD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2019. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A573768615/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a1471297. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024. McDaniel, Deanna. "CARLSON, Caroline. The Door at the End of the World." School Library Journal, vol. 65, no. 3, Apr. 2019, p. 71. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A581175259/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6b6d192e. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.

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