Edmund and Childe were swapped at birth. Now Edmund, a child of the fae, lives as a changeling in the human world; never fitting in, but very desperately wanting to. Childe is the pampered pet of his fairy parents. He is a curiosity in the court of the World Below. But when Hawthorne, an evil sorceress, takes the throne, it is up to these two along with Edmunds older, human sister and a “walking candle” (a golem) called Wick, to stop her.
Prince and the Pauper meets Fairyland in Estranged. Ethan M. Aldridge has created a full-color graphic novel that will please any fantasy lover. The themes teens love (coming of age, magic, siblings, dragons, goblins and more) are wrapped up in a delightful package.
The fantastical illustrations capture the feel of the story perfectly. I had a reader copy, so was unable to enjoy all the images in their final format, yet the teasers I had were delightful. The fact that the black and white versions are so powerful, means the color pages will pop even more. The introduction in the ARC says that Aldridge still uses paper with watercolor and ink.
I am choosing this as my “place I would like to travel” simply because, I have always wanted to visit Fairyland. Who would not want to battle witches and dragons and dance all night with beautiful creatures? Okay, so maybe I do not want to be chased around narrow tunnels by a treasure-hungry dragon and in Estranged you for sure need some friends, but still, who among us has not wanted to jump into the pages of a book so radically different from the world we know, yet, as Aldridge shows us, it is not so different after all…. And it is just through the subway tunnels.
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