The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire it has become one of my favourite book series in the last couple of years. We follow these children who have been chosen to live in these fantasy worlds, the worlds themselves call them and give them doors to cross, but after their adventure is over, after they have saved the world, they find themselves in here, again in earth but with their heart in that place that became their home. And now, they want to go back.

Each book of the series is so intriguing, the writing styles range from an adventure, full of action and tasks to complete type of story, to gothic novels and murder mysteries. For what I’ve inferred, each odd number book in the series (1, 3, 5, and probably 7) advances the earth plot, the story of the school and the adventures these kids need to have in order to learn some vital lesson before they can go back to the worlds they love. However, with each even number book (2, 4, and now 6) we get to know more about the magical worlds, we get to know about their lives and how they ended up in earth again, and why they want to go back so badly.

Across the Green Grass Fields is the sixth book in the series, and this time we follow someone who hasn’t been introduced by the main plot, which it is exiting because we can assume that Reagan is going to appear in the next one, I think it’s going to be interesting see her interact with the schools cast.

This is such a good story, we follow Reagan and her life as the only human in the Hooflands, where humans are heroes, they are expected and appreciated when they get there. Humans are prophecy, each time one appears tragedy follows, and this time is Reagan the one who needs to safe the Hooflands.

I really like all the themes the author tries to explore, such as chosen family, identity beyond what is expected from you, internalized misogyny, what it means to have a destiny, the oh so common human saviour complex, prejudice, horse girls rights, just to name a few. However, pacing overshadowed a little too much my level of enjoyment.

The book starts with Reagan in her childhood, she’s trying to process new information that comes to her life. It is a confusing time for her, and it becomes painful. Then we get to the new world that adopts her, we see her grow as a person, as her own individual. This happens in the first ¾ of the book. The author takes her time to make us care about the characters and their journey, but that leaves all the action and the climax of the book to the last 25 pages, rushed to say the least. In my personal opinion, the book would benefit from having more pages to explore the last part of the book with the patience and timing it might need.

I also noticed that the last adventure part of this book was probably inspired by the story of Momotarō, a traditional Japanese folk tale, that also follows the protagonist and the animal sidekicks that he encounters throughout his journey that end up joining him and helping him in his quest. I’d have loved to see a little bit more development and interactions between Reagan and the two animals that join her in her own quest, maybe spend a more time building the relationship between them. Nevertheless, all of these takes, my opinions in pacing and character relationships come from my personal taste as a reader, which is the more plot driven kind, therefore the climax of the book and the falling action are a priority in sincere opinions of what makes a story work for me.

In spite of all the criticism that I could possibly have for this book, I still think it is a really good story, especially for this series and the audience who loves it. It fit really well with the tone of the rest of the books, and it is always nice to have some gender diversity, something I always remark when recommending these books.

Seanan McGuire, the author of Across the Green Grass Fields, the newest addition to the Wayward Children series, is bringing us a touching and verdant tale that takes place amongst centaurs and unicorns.

Seanan McGuire, author of countless novels, novellas, comics, short stories, and songs, has an inborn connection to myths and legends. In reading her stories, it seems like McGuire takes tales of old and twists them, turns them on their head, and serves them to her readers like an exquisite delicacy. I have gorged myself on her stories in the past. I can say that I have enjoyed what Seanan has written for her full catalog in one way or another. Even the stories that don't 100% connect with me as a reader, I appreciate her mastery as a writer. Luckily for me, she is a prolific writer, and I have many choices in stories. 

All that being said, I enjoyed Across the Green Grass Fields, as I have enjoyed or loved the other books in her Wayward Children series, but this one was not my favorite. I came out of the story almost ambivalent to the plot. 

The story starts with the main character, a little girl named Regan. Regan is different than other girls in the story. You see how Regan is kind and empathetic and how she stumbles in personal relationships as McGuire details the intricacies of those relationships with her peers. Girls can be mean, the mean girl stereotype is there for a reason, and she is getting the full force of it due to her "best friend."  While Regan is ten at the start of this story, that is only in years as Regan is far wiser in some ways than your average ten-year-old girl. Regan has one passion, and that is a love of horses. According to Regan, this is an acceptable passion for a young girl. Had she had a passion, for say, bugs, she knows that she would be ostracized and shunned as some of her classmates had been. She keeps most of this love to herself and does not share it with her schoolmates. This self-awareness plays a significant role in Regan's character's development as the story moves onwards. 

As the story continues, Regan ages, and her schoolmates physically develop. But, Regan seems stalled in her childlike stage. She is standing on the precipice of starting that terrible transition to adulthood but not quite getting there. 

She goes to her parents with the question, "Why?" Why is she different than the other girls? Her parents let her know that she is intersex. I am delighted that McGuire took such a real and pertinent issue and gave it the treatment it deserves. Regan is an example of one of McGuire's strengths, in that she treats and creates children as real human beings. They feel fear, panic, and emotional turmoil and are not treated with, pardon the pun, kid gloves. 

Regan reaches out to a "friend" and explains to her friend what being intersex is. She wants to talk about a momentous thing in her life so she reaches out to a "friend." The "friend" reacts as I can imagine some children reacting and starts yelling at her, calling her a boy and telling the school. What should be an intimate moment between friends turns into taunting and jeers from uninformed and cruel kids. Regan runs out of her school. 

At this point, Regan finds a door. 

If you are familiar with any of the Wayward Children books, you understand the significance of a door and what it means for the child. The door is to a place, unlike your home. In previous books, a door led children to a land of mad science and death, a goblin market, or lands made of candy. Each land changes the child. In this child's case, the land that Regan walked into is one called Hooflands. A land of centaurs, unicorns, and other creatures of the same ilk. Perfect land for one who loves all creatures equine. It is said when a human child comes through a door into the Hooflands; it portends to change. By the act of her coming to The Hooflands, her human nature wills a destiny into effect. One that will affect the citizens of The Hooflands and change the world they know. Regan does not believe in destiny. 

"Welcome to the Hooflands. We're happy to have you, even if you being here means something's coming."

The second and third part of Across the Grass Green Fields details the land of centaurs and unicorns. It is an unusual lake on the mythos behind these creatures. McGuire's Worldbuilding is lush and verdant. Like any of her other stories across multiple genres, there is always a slightly dark edge to everything. What may be green and gorgeous with towering trees and emerald green moss will likely be housing monsters. This speaks to McGuire's familiarity with folk tales and legends. Before Disney, stories such as The Little Mermaid and Hansel and Gretel were tales of fancy as much as cautionary. Good does not always conquer evil. Sometimes the witch does eat the children, and the mermaid might not get the prince. And, of course, everything has teeth. 

Regan spends years living amongst the creatures of The Hooflands. She becomes a wild girl, probably who she was always meant to be. She also learns self-reliance, kindness, strength of will, and character. I like who Regan becomes; it feels like a proper extension and growth for her as a character. But, as a human is an omen for significant change in the Hooflands, Regan has a destiny that will be fulfilled. Even if she doesn't believe in fate and wants to be left alone with her found family.

"She still didn't believe in destiny. Clay shaped into a cup was not always destined to become a drinking vessel' it was simply shaped by someone too large to be resisted. She was not clay, but she had been shaped by her circumstances all the same, not directed by any destiny."

The fourth and final act of the story is where Across the Green Grass Fields lost me a little bit. This book has beautiful writing, a great explanation of centaurs' matriarchal society, and touching descriptions of the real friendships Regan makes. But, beyond the lush details, the actual plot and final crescendo of the story fell flat for me. It felt anti-climatic in the face of such excellent writing. However, I have to say that Regan's very practical nature is entertaining to read. The vital thing to note about the ending, even though I found it anti-climatic; it is in line with Regan's character. One of the major themes of Across the Green Grass Fields has to do with destiny or lack thereof. Regan believes in her future, her own path. It will not be defined by what and who thinks it should. That idea starts slow when dealing with her peers' preconceived notions and eventually crescendos at the end of the story.  Regan becomes more comfortable in her shoes and does not care if that bothers anyone. 

Overall, I enjoyed this addition to The Wayward Children series, great characters, and a lush world.  It is solid, but I think it lacks the same oomph that other books in the series have. I will continue reading the Wayward Books, taken as a whole series; they are lovely and some of McGuires best writing.

Seanan McGuire rarely disappoints and this book is no exception. A fun and engaging read with intersex representation, which I have rarely seen before.  The books challenges perceptions of a what a “girl needs to be”.  A wonderful story of friendship and learning to be comfortable in your own skin.  A fast, easy read that is sure to engage and entertain. Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me to review this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This series is a joy to read and this book is no different. We meet Regan a young girl dearly loved by her parents but Regan feels somewhat different to the other girls in school. It's nothing that she can quite put her finger on but nevertheless Regan really wants to fit in. Her best friend is little Miss popular if you get my drift but as they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder . Regan discovers something about herself that she shares with devastating consequences leading her to run away but she's led to a doorway that leads to the Hooflands and there is where her journey to self discovery truly begins !
Beautifully told with frequent moments of humour I adored this exploration of what it means to be a little different. We need books like this that explore diversity and all the possibilities therein. This felt like a standalone although it does connect with others in this series. Perhaps more of the miniature of the day to day living of the Centaurs but this allowed the reader to experience Regans growth. I did find the conclusion to be a tad quick but because I overall enjoyed it so much I honestly don't mind.
This voluntary take is of an advanced copy and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

I was so excited to pick up the next book in the series, even if it was a standalone. I have really liked these books since I started them a few years back. This one was very different, but I still thought it was very well done. It was a little odd to just have a doorway which leads to a place where everyone has hooves rather than logic or strange magic happening. It just seemed so ordinary. It was still a strange land, but it was one of the more normal ones I thought. 

Regan is watching her friends grow up and wonders why she is not the same. They are all getting breasts, periods, and liking boys. She does not care for any of this. Her passion is riding horses. When she finds out she is intersex, she does not know how to take the news. She says she is fine, but it is clear there is still a lot to handle for her. Thinking she can trust her best friend, she shares the news and is shunned. Unable to handle this, she runs away and finds a doorway. This leads to Hoofland where she is found by a centaur and happily lives for the next six years. 

The lives of centuars are different, bur Regan is happy among them. She learns to be like them in some ways, even though humans are considered important because they are meant to be heroes and save the day. The centaurs want to protect her, but this is not always possible. After living among them, she decides to go on her own journey to the Queen and learns the world she has been living in is not what quite what everyone believes.

McGuire is a quick read. Enjoyable no matter what. I do like this series a lot, though this one was not my favorite. I want a story about Kade, just like everyone else. Reading these evokes the great memories of picking these books up for the first time and makes me eager to take another chance with reading them again for the enjoyment. 

This would work well for fantasy fans since it is a standalone, but it does compliment the rest of the series quite nicely. I would say a must for fans of the author and even those who want try her without reading the first books. 

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Tor/Forge for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I very much enjoyed this installment in the series! I was definitely one of those horse crazy girls when I was younger, so I was excited to read about a world full of different types of equines.

In this story we follow Regan, a horse crazy girl who finds out the hard way how judgmental some people can be when someone doesn’t fit into the boxes that society wants to place them in. Regan begins to feel like something is wrong with her when the other girls start to go through puberty, but Regan herself hasn’t changed at all. She eventually asks her parents who inform her that her body may take longer to develop, or may need some help to get things going because she is intersex. The way that Regan’s parents handled this conversation and how kind and supportive they were was really nice to see.

One thing leads to another, and Regan gets her own door, this time to The Hooflands, a world with kelpies, centaurs, unicorns, kirins, and more! I really loved this world a lot, and the characters that Regan meets along the way. I really liked the way that this all played into how even though these centaurs and kelpies are different from Regan, they’re still people and still matter which fits nicely with the way Regan was feeling before she found her door.

This book felt different from the others in the series, and I don’t know if that’s because this one felt more like it could easily be a middle grade story to me or it it’s something else. I really liked how many messages this book had, from found family, unconditional love, destiny, and being true to yourself.

As far as the plot goes, we spend a lot more time seeing the day to day life of Regan and the centaurs she lives with. When Regan first arrives in this world, she’s told that all humans must be turned over to the queen so that they can begin their quest to save the world, but that takes a back seat to everything else which I think also makes this one different than the others in the series.

The one thing I didn’t truly love was the ending – it felt a little too rushed (which is saying something for a 167 page novella) and I didn’t really feel like I had enough closure. I did enjoy the reveal at the end and the way that it fit in with the message of destiny and the expectations that are put on you and how it’s easier when you’re surrounded by those who love you.

I really hope we get to see another book in the Hooflands, because I would love to see more of the creatures that inhabit this world! I really love this series a lot, and think that everyone should read them if they get the chance because they’re just so….full of hope and understanding. I’m looking forward to the next book, and the title looks like it’s going to be Where the Drowned Girls Go which sounds exciting!

Seanan McGuire continues to prove that any and every story can be queer. In this case, it's the story of an intersex girl named Regan and her childhood friendships and discovering who she is. Ultimately like all of the other books in this series, she ends up going into another world through a door she finds while walking along a creek. Once she passes through, she encounters a world free of pollution and populated by centaurs. She meets Pansy and Pansy takes her back to her lodging with her family and Regan is in awe of them just as much as they are in awe of her. She is a human and humans in their world save it and then leave, but Regan does not want to leave. So they help hide her as she gets familiar with the world and builds a family among them.

Like all of the other books in this series, this one is beautifully written. Not only that, it's filled with humor and morality, a message and a joke on every other page. I really think this is my favorite of the series so far. I was worried that we would be getting another Jack and Jill story so I'm really pleased that we didn't and that the story was so fresh compared to the rest of the series. I'm excited to see how Regan fits in with the rest of the Wayward crew and what will come of her after this story. I'm just happy that there are six more books in this series because I don't want them to stop.

Copied from my Goodreads review: 

Another great addition to the Wayward Children series! This one has intersex rep which I hadn’t read about before. As always with these books I highly recommend it!

**I received an e-arc via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. This in no way affects my thoughts or opinions on this book.

Across the Green Grass Fields is another fantastic installment in the Wayward Children series, and a good entry point if you haven't tried the books before! This one is the backstory of Regan, a young girl who opens a door to another world- the Hooflands, populated by centaurs, unicorns, and other hooved animals. It's incredibly well-paced with a story arc that addresses difference and acceptance (as do many of McGuire's books).

Regan ends up in the Hooflands after finding out she was born intersex and has a friend be nasty about that revelation. While there she learns how to be a good friend and becomes comfortable in her own skin. Part of what happens in this other world is really about seeing the personhood in everyone, not just those who are the same as you. It's a beautiful, engaging story and among my favorite entries. I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

McGuire’s Wayward Children books are always concentrated bites of awesome. ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS is no different. Like all the novella’s in the series it uses fantasy worlds to explore different aspects of gender and identity.

Regan is struggling to reconcile what everyone thinks a girl needs to be with the choices she actually wants to make. Destiny, pre-determination and deviating from what’s ‘meant to be’ are all looked at alongside what it means to be a hero and to be a ‘person’.

This is book six in the series, and you’d think they’d be starting to lose momentum by now, but ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS is (along with the two Jack and Jill stories) has been my favourite.

I read this one in two sittings (and it would have been one if I didn’t need sleep).

This series just gets better and better!

Across the Green Grass Fields - Seanan McGuire

Pros: great characters, excellent world-building

Cons: I’d have liked a longer epilogue

Ten year old Regan Lewis strives to be normal, so when she notices that puberty isn’t hitting her like the other girls she starts asking questions. Walking home from school after a rough day of bad choices, she finds a strange door and stumbles into another world, a world populated by various equine races. Her presence means their world needs saving, but Regan doesn’t believe in destiny, and doesn’t want to be a hero.

This is the 6th book in the Wayward Children series, but is a complete standalone novella. Regan has not been in any of the other books and the story is completely self-contained.

I loved Regan as a character and enjoyed seeing her start to question the world and her place in it. I thought the Hooflands were wonderful, with a well developed culture between the various hooved races (which includes centaurs, kelpies, satyrs and more).

While I’d have liked a longer epilogue showing some of the fallout of Regan’s adventure I understand why McGuire ended this novella where she did. It wraps up this particular story nicely, though I’m hopeful there’s a follow-up novella that continues Regan’s story.

The copy of the book I reviewed was an advance reader copy, so it didn’t have the illustrations by Rovina Cai. I’ve seen a few of them on the Tor.com website and they’re quite nice and I can imagine they help add to the fairytale quality of the story.

If you love horses and character development, this one’s for you.

(4.5 stars) I’m a long-time fan of this series and look forward to a new book every year. This was whimsical as usual while dealing with some tough topics. Regan is intersex and I appreciated the representation and discussion around that. This story takes place in the Hooflands and my unicorn loving heart was here for it! The main themes of this book were of destiny and finding your place but it also touched on how unjust those perceived as ‘other’ are treated. One negative is that I was disappointed that we did not see any characters from previous installments that we have come to know and love. *ARC provided by NetGalley for review.

Not my favorite of the Wayward Children series.  While the others had a touch of dark fantasy--just enough to move the story ahead--Green Grass Fields felt much more juvenile..  Enjoyable but a bit too fluffy.

This is the sixth installment in The Wayward Children series and this one just about ripped my heart out. Regan grows up adhering to the very strict yet very arbitrary rules that girls must follow in our world. She doesn’t find her door until a secret told to the wrong person threatens to rip her world apart. This novella has all the hallmarks and beats that I love about Seanan McGuire’s work.

Seanan McGuire continues the Wayward Children series with this sixth entry, Across the Green Grass Fields. This novella is a standalone. Readers don’t have to read the other five novellas in order to enjoy Across the Green Grass Fields—although I definitely recommend them. In this entry, Regan finds a portal to a world of centaurs, kelpies, and other hooved beings on the worst day of her life. She doesn’t return for six years.

Like the other books in the Wayward Children series, Across the Green Grass Fields is about becoming comfortable with one’s identity and finding a place that feels right. Other stories in this series have featured trans characters, characters who have personalities that are incompatible with their very “normal” families, or who just don’t seem to fit where they are. Doors appear for these characters that open into dangerous, adventurous worlds where these characters can come into their own. Regan is intersex, but she only finds out when she asks her parents why she hasn’t hit puberty when all of her peers have. And; she finds her door on the day that she realizes that her “best friend” is no such thing after revealing her biology.

On the other side of the door are the Hooflands. Regan is rescued by a humble unicorn-herding family of centaurs. Humans are supposed to be immediately delivered to the ruling monarch because, historically, they only appear in the Hooflands to save the world. But Regan’s found family keep her under wraps. No one cares about Regan’s biology (apart from the fact that she is human) or gender. The centaurs, kelpies, minotaurs, and other species of the Hooflands have completely different gender roles. With no one scrutinizing Regan’s behavior and body, she is free to just be Regan, to do and wear and say what feels right.

Ultimately, Across the Green Grass Fields is about the lies people tell to keep up appearances and maintain tradition. Regan does eventually meet her Hooflands destiny by traveling to the queen’s palace to do whatever it is she needs to do to save her life, only to uncover a great big lie that’s been perpetuated for centuries. McGuire has similar morals in the other entries in the Wayward Children series. The books are like modern fairy tales in that they all contain important lessons, embedded in plots and dangers that the protagonist has to survive. It’s as though McGuire is creating a new canon of instructive (and highly entertaining and original) folklore for contemporary readers. I love these books.

I’ve been hit and miss on Seanan McGuire’s portal series, finding some lyrical and emotional and others frustratingly slapdash. Here newest, Across the Green Grass Fields, unfortunately falls closer toward that latter part of the spectrum.

As one expects by now, we have a young girl who steps through a doorway into another world. We meet Regan first at seven, part of a best friends trio with Heather Nelson and Laurel Anderson. Quickly, though, she gets drawn into one of those cruel moments of childhood where demarcations are drawn. When queen bee Laurel arbitrarily decides Heather isn’t “girly” enough, she shuns Heather and Regan, learning quickly “this is what it costs to be different,” goes along with it. Years pass and when Regan (now 11) learns the shocking secret her parents have been keeping from her — that she is intersexual with XY instead of XX chromosomes — she foolishly confides in her “best friend”, who promptly (and predictably) responds with horror and condemnation. Fleeing the confrontation, Regan finds her doorway and steps through.

On the other side are “The Hooflands”, a land of centaurs and kelpies and kirins and others such creatures. Though Regan doesn’t meet any until the very end. Instead, she is found by a centaur and adopted into their small herd of isolated unicorn shepherds, becoming best friends with a young centaur named Chicory. Though she misses and mourns her parents, Regan quickly settles in and becomes a cherished member of the herd, constantly putting off her “destiny” —to be taken to the Queen so Regan can perform her heroic duty, which is always the case with humans who have found their way here:  they save the Hooflands and disappear. When Regan, now 15, is allowed to join the herd at the Fair, though, events quickly escalate. She and the herd are forced to flee, and when Regan is separated, she meets some of the other inhabitants of the hooflands, with surprising results. Eventually though, destiny or not, Regan finds herself making her way with some unexpected companions to the Queen’s castle for a final confrontation that may or may not save the world and herself. 

On the positive side, McGuire remains a smooth wordsmith. The novella moves along briskly and fluidly, with some lovely lines sprinkled throughout as well as some humor, as with McGuire’s subversion of the typical unicorn trope. The potential awfulness/cruelty of childhood, a running theme in McGuire’s work, is as always sharply, vividly conveyed. And the story has a solid message at its core, or several of them. 

Unfortunately, for me the above positives were outweighed by the negatives. One is less a flaw than just a personal response. This book felt very YA to me, almost MG, and towards the very end, I even wrote in my notes it was starting to feel like a children’s illustrated book. So it skews very young. Not necessarily a bad thing, but because of that skewing it just doesn’t have the richness or complexity I prefer in my novels at this point in my life. 

Somewhat related, though not entirely, it also felt very flat and almost perfunctory, glossing over or handwaving away plot and character points that were ripe for so much more development (and not just ripe for, I’d argue, but requiring much more development). Part of that, of course, is the form. There’s just not a lot of space in a novella. But then again, one can choose a story more fitting for the form (or change the form if the story overflows it). 

As noted, the early scene about how cruel childhood can be is vividly presented, but it might be the only such scene. The scene where Regan learns of her intersexuality, for instance, felt more expository than emotive. Implausibly so. Something that seems almost acknowledged by the author when Regan tells her mother the conversation sounded like her mom was “reciting some Wikipedia article you memorized.”  And the constant proclamations that Regan was “perfect” felt forced (more in the writerly sense than in the within-the-characters sense). The scene where she reveals her secret also feels forced, given that we’ve spend pages on how Regan has learned the cost of being different, how fiercely Laurel destroys those who don’t fit into neat categories, etc. Again, the scene is lampshaded by Regan’s internal monologue about how “despite Laurel being . . . “etc. she still told her, but it didn’t really make the moment more plausible. Finally, the whole intersex thing disappears soon after. It’s not that this needed to be a “special episode” story where Regan learns to deal with her intersexuality etc., but it’s hard to imagine it just never comes up in her mind again. In the Hooflands, we get a few tossaway lines about her missing her parents, but it never felt real or part of her. And then we get another implausible scene — this one an abduction — that only makes sense if everyone acts stupidly and that was signposted from the very start (I wrote in the margin— “hmm, wonder what will happen”). And again, having someone later say “we should have known better” doesn’t really excuse the scene. I’ll grant this may be less of an issue for an MG reader. 

There were several other such instances I won’t go into. And some moments that felt, to use the term from above, slapdash or careless. Regan doesn’t “fully understand” what the reference to “D-cups is” from her mother, but a few pages earlier she’s mentioned how two groups of her acquaintances (at school and at the barn) were talking about their developing breasts and it’s hard to imagine large breasts or cup size was never mentioned. Later, Regan is “shocked” when a creature suggests he’ll eat her when he had literally told her exactly that a few pages earlier. And there are other such moments, including a pretty big plot development that changes everything but makes no sense based on what came before, or is explained away in very weak form. 

Finally, the last segment feels completely rushed and perfunctory, with things sliding into place in a fashion that felt, as I mentioned above, more akin to a picture book than a work for older readers. The resolution, meanwhile, was both darkly grim for a kid’s book and also unsubtly expositive/dogmatic in the form that children’s books often take, so it felt more than a little at odds with itself.

I know this is quite the beloved series, and my guess is this newest entry won’t do much to change that for fans. For me, while I can admire McGuire’s smooth style, the book’s flaws made it a far more frustrating than enjoyable read and one I can’t recommend.

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced readers copy! Having only recently discovered the Wayward Children series I was beyond excited to learn that I would not have to wait long for the next installment. Across the Green Grass Fields takes readers away from Elenor West's Home for Wayward Children and introduces a cast of brand new characters. Telling the story of Regan who is running from a complicated childhood when she suddenly discovers a door that asks her to "Be Sure". Crossing the doorway she discovers herself in a fantastical new world, filled with centaurs and unicorns and humans are often heroes. Across the Green Grass Fields is a good addition to the Wayward Children series, and serves as a great introduction for anyone new to the series. McGuire has once again crafted another fantastic world for characters to inhabit. Not only writing a story that captures how entrapping and confusing gender stereotypes can be for children but also showing how important it is to be true to yourself. While not my favorite entry in the Wayward Children series, Green Grass Fields is an enjoyable read that ends far too quickly.

A new Wayward Children installment is always a delight to read. Across the Green Grass Fields does not disappoint.

The best Wayward Children book in a long time - although maybe I just think so because I'm a grownup Horse Girl!  A rare book with positive non-sensationalized intersex representation, a great depiction of crappy manipulative friendship dynamics between young girls, and a rich fantasy world.  I'd have actually liked it to be quite a bit longer - the third act seemed to go by very quickly.

I admire Horse Girls, but I have never been one of them. So at first, I didn't think I was going to enjoy this installment of the Wayward Children series. But then, as she usually does, Seanan McGuire left me with tears in my eyes. She writes the children that adults with complicated feelings about their own childhoods need.

And again, as usual, I'm desperate for the next volume so I can see the crew at Eleanor West's again.