Lloyd Alexander is one of the grandmasters of children’s fantasy; he started publishing back around the time of the early Madeleine L’Engle and Susan Cooper books, and continued right up until his death last year. I’ve read several of his books prior to starting this blog — the Prydain chronicles and the Westmark trilogy, arguably his most famous works — and reviewed one before (The Rope Trick) and I still haven’t actually made a dent in his output. Generally his books are for middle-grade readers; he’s even got a habit of featuring strong female characters among the lot. The second of the Prydain chronicles, The Black Cauldron, was made into an animated Disney movie back in the early 1980s; it’s mostly been forgotten now (although I own it on an all-but-useless VHS tape).

Gypsy Rizka lives outside of a town called Greater Dunitsa, but barely — she spends most of her days inside that town. Ostensibly she’s waiting for her father, a fiddler, to return for her, but most days she amuses herself by meddling in the affairs of the townspeople. Often it’s for good, such as helping her friend Sofiya acquire and be allowed to keep a kitten or five, but when someone in the city — Chief Councilor Sharpnack — decides that she’s an eyesore and a blot upon the town’s sterling reputation, she doesn’t pull any punches. (Ask him about the incident with the chicken.) Will she be allowed to stay? For that matter, will she want to stay?

Primarily, this book reads like an interconnected series of folk tales about a folk heroine/trickster. Rizka is larger than life, despite being short, scrawny, and wearing a patchy coat, and cleverer than everyone else in the town, too. The citizens of the town are most definitely characters, each in his own way. The mayor is named Pumpa, and is of course pompous; his daughter Esperanza never appears on screen without us being told that she’s exquisitely beautiful; her secret boyfriend never appears without us reading how dashing he is. There is also a town hero, who has (over the years) promoted himself to General, despite little actual military experience; and a barber, formerly a doctor, who makes his own hair oils and perfumes, in various scents.

Rizka’s adventures border on the unbelievable; in the first few pages, we see her convince an out-of-town guest that the fleas he picked up from the town’s hotel are a blessing, not a torture. It’s a pretty good feat of logic, and she uses these same kinds of logic to defeat many of her detractors. I think my favorite scheme is the one she used to convince Sofiya’s father (the mayor) that Sofiya should be allowed to keep the five kittens she found. It involved a ghost, mustard on the table, and the clock tower; overall it was completely ridiculous, and the fact that it worked was even more ridiculous. Naturally, I smiled for nearly the entire 195 pages.

I think this would be the perfect book to read out loud. Each chapter is relatively self-contained, so if one’s kids are like me and hate that one-chapter-a-night thing, this might be a little less irritating than usual. While it’s great to read to one’s self, and quite enjoyable in print form, I believe that it might be even more fun while read out loud. It might even actually make a good movie; it’s rather cinematic in many senses. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone, especially younger readers and older readers with younger readers who would like to hear the book read aloud. (There is an audio book version, by the way.) 4.5/5 stars.