Notes on Reading: Candlewick by Laura Amy Giles

I picked up Candlewick on a library shelf last month, drawn in by the cover illustration of a small girl walking home along a country road in the 1920s. I had not expected it to stay with me, but it did — more than I expected, in fact.

The protagonist, Bonnie Carrow, lives with her parents and three older brothers in a town where everyone keeps to themselves. The most magical thing in the story is the traveling dollmaker who arrives one evening carrying a wooden box of tiny furniture. He makes dolls that move on their own. Bonnie, who is nine and stubborn in the way only young children can be, follows him home after the show.

What makes the book work is how quietly the magic operates. It is not announced. It simply appears, like a firefly in a jar. The town does not change; the people do not suddenly become better or worse. But Bonnie carries something home that night — a sense that the world contains more mystery than she had credited it with — and that carries into the rest of her days.

I think of the title character (the dollmaker, not the girl) the way I think of certain songs: not because they are loud or easy to hum, but because they leave a shape in the air after they end.

A good read. I recommend it to anyone who still believes in small wonders.