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Review by Timothy Gager

This novella, beautifully illustrated by Sara Zieve Miller, transcends the world into a place of whimsy and adventure. It is an adventure that will capture the imagination of children and those of any age. In The Little Queen, Geddes tells the story of a little girl whose parents pass on, leaving her to live on as the little queen. It is a role the little queen initially wants to rid herself of, willing to trade places with anyone to become something else.

In her adventures, the little queen meets folks such as the book sniffer, the wall sawyer, the tree woman, the window builder, the poop encourager, the string woman, the editor of the Digital Dictionary of Sounds, the bodily linguist, the architect of chaos, and the reflector. All of these characters, with various imaginary vocations, glue the work together as pieces of a greater whole. The book reads like a modern Little Prince, with the truth sought through adventures. But unlike in The Little Prince, in which the title character leaves his planet, Geddes has the little queen leaving the palace, the only home she’s known.

Geddes deftly takes us through this philosophical fairy-tale. She explores the beauty of the world, coming-of-age, the notion of what or where home is. “A home is a resting place for the heart,” the little queen says. Geddes shows that home is a combination of all the elements in the world, the seeking of completeness through shared love. Home is something you may seek, a place you may try to run away to, but it is located back to where you find the most comfort and with the souls of many of which pure experiences are harvested. The Little Queen is a lovely book, filled with mythical understanding and life lessons.