HER MUDDY MAJESTY OF MUCK

An underground detour allows a girl to better understand herself and her big brother.

“My name is Yuki. I have a terrible temper.” The young narrator believes that her rudeness and tendency to burst into tears are the reasons her brother, Shen, doesn’t like her. After picking her up from school and handing her the house keys, he “sulks silently inside his hood, like a caterpillar in a cocoon.” Frustrated, Yuki throws the keys down a manhole but instantly regrets her actions. She descends a long ladder to the bottom, where she meets the titular mud princess—a lumpy brown tour guide, dripping with dirt and with twigs instead of hair, but with a welcoming demeanor. In the best tradition of enlightening literary journeys, the duo pass through the Wicked Woods, Lake Youbegone, and the Grumporium. Each setting is wondrous, the earthy palette incorporating shimmering blues and textured mixed-media patterns. Comic relief comes in various forms, among them the smelly, mean Boogers that trail after them. As she travels with Her Royal Muddiness, Yuki learns some profound truths about family and emotion: “When people get angry, they take it out on the things they love.” Tenderness undergirds Yuki and Shen’s ensuing reunion. Alemagna’s narrative employs lovely alliteration, striking figurative language, subtle exchanges between characters, and delightful images to probe the siblings’ complex emotions while allowing readers to discern meaning for themselves. Human characters are pale-skinned and dark-haired.

An imaginative, deeply satisfying odyssey.