Stone-in-the-Glen was once a happy place, but it isn't so much anymore. Everyone is suspicious and keeps to themselves. The fifteen orphans, headed up by the oldest three, Anthea, Bartleby, and Cass, know it isn't right or logical. And the Ogress who lives on the edge of the town watches all with her periscope and brings deliveries, with her friends the crows, by night to all the townspeople.

There is some charm to the old-fashioned feel of this fable, with a narrator who speaks directly to the reader with asides, a bunch of orphans, and an Ogress who is treated with suspicion while the Mayor - who the reader soon discovers we should be suspicious of - rules the roost and swindles the town. It was a little too on the nose and preachy for me, with too many characters and a writing style that kept them all at arm's length. ( )

I was expecting another fantastically whimsical story from Kelly Barnhill about an Ogress who became friends with a set of Orphans (obviously), and while we may have gotten that in spades, I was completely sidelined by the strong social commentary that underpinned the entire narrative. Barnhill has written a fable that builds around the shattered town of Stone-in-the-Glen, a place that may have fallen on hard times but still holds an intrinsic charm that we can’t help but root for. Populated by butchers, bakers, and a houseful of Orphans (probably a few candlestick makers too), it becomes clear from early on in the narrative that something went clearly wrong with the town when its library (my heart!) mysteriously burned down. Just on the outskirts of town lives an Ogress, who may seem rough on the outside, but who we soon discover has a heart of gold and plays perfectly into her role as secret benefactor of the town. But we wouldn’t have much of a story if the Ogress simply made friends with the townsfolk, and through her kind intervention managed to revitalise the place, so Barnhill adds a wily dragon into the mix. Hiding within plain (but well-disguised) view of the townsfolk, the dragon-mayor has quietly built himself an empire of wealth while letting the town suffer around him, all of which hinges on stoking unrest amongst the citizens and pitting them against outsiders. Is the mayor starting to sound familiar, yet? It is clear that Barnhill is drawing her themes and characters from the everyday news cycle, but she weaves them into such a well-drawn fable structure that the story becomes a lovely and entertaining allegory about the power of kindness. ( )

Stone-in-the-Glen was once a lovely place, where neighbors helped each other and there was always enough to go around. Then, one horrible night, the library burned down. That started a chain of events that led to the village becoming a sad, hardscrabble place, where people stay behind locked doors and care only for their own welfare. Some years later, an ogress with her own history of tragedy moves to a farm near the village and begins to share the bounty of her garden and forest foraging in the dark of night. But will her acts of kindness be enough to change the town?

I wanted to like this book so much. I love juvenile fantasy, and I enjoyed Barnhill's Newbery winner, The Girl Who Drank the Moon. However, I found this book a little too preachy. Even though I agree with the message that the book is pushing (Sharing good! Greed bad!), I felt like it was being shoved down my throat constantly. So, despite the charming orphans and the magical library and the crows and the lovely ogress herself, I just couldn't completely fall into the story and enjoy it for what it was. Hopefully, kids who read this book will feel differently. ( )

This is a _weird_ story - the story itself is pretty simple and sweet, but the format is weird. It's kind of... mythical language? The kids are more or less normal kids, with helping and quarrels and questions, but the way they're described makes them kind of archetypes rather than people. I find the constant interjections (Listen! or I knew, of course, but no one asked me... etc etc) rather annoying. And the story is told inside out - the reader knows, completely, where and what the problem is while the characters haven't a clue (except the interjector, of course). It is a nice story, and a tearjerker near the end (as they begin to recover), but the style utterly didn't work for me - I felt like I was peering through a cloud of smoke or a veil, trying to see the story through all the clever style bits. Not for me. ( )