Sophie Glendale and the Secret Star

Nicole Warn has built something a young portal-fantasy reader can sink into: a cozy magical anchor point (The Enchanted Trinket, with its jingle-jangle bells and shapeshifting cat Ed) that opens onto a growing network of kingdoms with their own textures and stakes. What sets Sophie Glendale and the Secret Star apart is how the world keeps expanding logically rather than just piling on new settings — the In-Betweens explanation Isla gives ("When I traveled to Korralyna, my legs became a tail so I could belong beneath the water") retroactively answers a question a sharp nine-year-old reader would already be asking, and folding in Murphy the frog as evidence of cross-kingdom travel rewards attentive series readers without confusing new ones.

Dusty Hollow itself is the book's best invention for this age group: a dying small town losing its water and its shops to a flashier neighbor, rendered through concrete, sensory detail (the dark waterline on the dock posts, the CLOSED sign, Wilburrow the donkey losing his cargo one bag at a time) rather than abstract explanation. It's a gentle, legible introduction to real-world economic displacement — Brightwater's big stores versus mom-and-pop shops passed down through generations — handled with Isla's fair-minded caution: "Someone could look guilty and still not be the whole problem." That's a sophisticated beat for MG, delivered without lecturing.

The dialogue crackles in the small comic exchanges — Sophie and Samantha's telescope stand-off, Ed dropping the ribbon, Floofadoodle's shy approach, Isla's unbothered non-answers ("You'll see") — giving the book rhythm and read-aloud charm even in its quieter chapters.