Talk about an unexpectedly sweet read! I love when a book surprises me, and this one did exactly that. It was like Roald Dahl for adults, and lord knows I loved me so Roald Dahl when I was a kid.

The book focuses on Linus Baker, a 40-year-old man who isn’t particularly happy. He has high blood pressure, he could stand to lose some weight and hopes to achieve this by eating really sad sounding salads. He lives alone with his cat next door to an old woman who is constantly nagging him in a city that is described as dark and endlessly rainy. The only joy that Linus finds is in his old records from the 1950s that he listens to each night after dinner.

Linus works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth and the goal of this department is to ensure that magical children are properly cared for in the orphanages in which they live. Linus isn’t particularly happy with his job, but he’s good at it and he’s very good at following the rules and doing everything by the book without asking questions so as to fly beneath the radar.

Much to Linus’s surprise, he is called forth by Extremely Upper Management and told that he is to spend a month on an island where six children live in an orphanage. These six children are allegedly some of the most dangerous – one of which is the son of Satan himself and could bring about the destruction of the world. He is told that he is to send back thorough reports to Extremely Upper Management about how the children are treated, how they behave, and how the proprietor of the orphanage behaves.

When Arthur arrives on the island, the beauty of the place strikes him. It sits just off the coast, surrounded by a beautiful, blue ocean. He first meets two of the children: Talia (a female gnome with a beard) and Theodore, a wyvern. Later he’ll meet a forest sprite named Phee, Sal a large young man who turns into a Pomeranian when he’s scared, Chauncey who is some sort of unknown sea blob who wants nothing more than to grow up and become a bell hop and Lucy (short for Lucifer) the adventurous six-year-old with a wild imagination who could allegedly destroy the world.

Taking care of the children is a man named Arthur Parnassus who is tall, gentle and firm but loving toward the children and Zoe – the forest sprite who lives in a cottage on the island. Arthur seems to have taken to Linus quickly, but Linus doesn’t trust his motives and wonders if he’s doing it to throw him off, but as Linus spends more time with Arthur, Zoe and the children, he wonders why this particular orphanage is under scrutiny. It seems these children are much better off and under better care than many of the children he’s checked in on over the years, so why is Extremely Upper Management focused on this place?

I won’t give away any specifics because this is definitely a book that needs to be read, but I will say in the end Linus learns an awful lot about himself. He learns that a family is sometimes chosen and not always one you are born into. He also learns that he is loveable and worthy of being loved, and above all, he learns that he and his opinions, matter.

This magical little story provides a glimmer of hope in a time when drag queens and transgender individuals – well, let’s face it – the entire LGBTQIA+ community – are being targeted for being “different” by ruthless politicians who rely on fear mongering to ramp up their base. There’s a lot of that in this book, and this is a pleasant reminder that just because someone is different from you, it doesn’t necessarily make them bad.

There were so many passages in this book that touched me and made me want to send a copy of this book to several bigots that I know. The problem is they probably wouldn’t read it – and if they did, the message would go completely over their head. Or they’d just burn the book because, ya know, that’s still a thing.

For those of you with open minds and open hearts, I would highly recommend this one. It’s a sweet, magical tale about love and found family.