THE PUPPETMASTER’S APPRENTICE

Pinocchio meets Frankenstein in this gender-swapped light fantasy.

Eleven years after losing his wife in childbirth—and their only child too—master puppeteer Gephardt Leiter succumbs to loneliness and puts his talents to the test. Though the territory of Tavia outlawed conjuring magic generations ago, Gep recites a forest crone’s incantation beneath a lustrous blue moon to bring a lovingly crafted marionette to life, a girl about the age his daughter would have been. Seven years later, Gep’s health fails and Pirouette, his (literally) animated daughter, finds herself struggling to complete the last in a commission of 100 life-sized soldiers. Soon after, the ruling Margrave’s heir demands yet another malicious mannequin, and he puts long-banned spells to use, turning an army of wooden brutes loose and accusing Piro of the very sorcery he’s practicing. Imprisoned by a madman, Piro faces a dreadful final task….An earnest, appealing, and accessible narrator, Piro fastens together a magnificent world where, per her father’s favorite maxim, “a maker will always prevail.” DeSelm’s at her best describing artisans at work—from the fleet-fingered tailor to the sure-handed potter—stitching, striking, stoking, and shaping raw materials into works of beauty. Allusions to source texts buttress gender-conscious explorations of belonging, honesty, autonomy, empathy, and the nuanced politics of creation. A simpler story about the timeless battle between those who produce and those who merely consume undergirds the fable. Physical descriptions indicate characters of varying ethnicities.

An artful adaptation and delightful debut.