Stella & Marigold

Gr 1-3–Barrows and Blackall, the team behind “Ivy and Bean,” debut a feisty new duo in this slim chapter book. An opening flashback introduces Stella at age three, waiting in her family’s “half-house” (the lower half of a duplex) for her parents to return from the hospital with newborn Marigold. The sisters’ bond is immediate, with Stella whispering promises to tell Marigold “all the secret things I know...forever and ever.” By ages seven and four, the sisters follow the tradition of countless literary pairs with polite and reserved Stella serving as a foil to plucky, mischievous Marigold. Each of the seven chapters functions as a complete narrative, with no overarching plot uniting them. The common thread is the sisters’ mutual devotion, with each vignette providing an opportunity for one sister to serve as heroine to the other, protecting her from embarrassment and guilt or rescuing her from loneliness and boredom. Their relationship is never a source of narrative conflict and is always essential in its resolution. As always, Barrows offers a spot-on childlike perspective that is both funny and keenly observant. Blackall’s whimsical illustrations capture the sisters’ individual personalities and their shared adoration. Main characters are white.