MY MAGICAL GNOME STORY BOOK–written and illustrated by Monika Anna Blichar–is a tale of magic and belief in a dreary world that lacks both. The tale borrows some names from other mythologies – Queen Mab, Gilgamesh and Endiku/Enkidu, primarily – though with minimal, if any, actual character resemblance to their ancient namesakes. The target audience, however, are children who, while old enough to read a prose storybook, are as yet unlikely to be familiar with Shakespeare or the Sumerian epics, and therefore this probably won’t be too much of a problem. The illustrations are mostly hand-drawn and lovely, full of vivid color, rich texture, and an imaginative charm. They have an eye-catching appeal that brings the story to life, and might inspire the story’s readers to experiment with some artworks of their own. There are also a couple of photographs at the beginning and end, a strategy that may make the story feel more convincing and real, as if the fairy world was intersecting with real life.
MY MAGICAL GNOME STORY BOOK depends heavily on the assumption that belief in magic makes people better, and that fewer and fewer people are retaining a belief in magic throughout their lives. Imagination and wonder are tied to kindness and familial love, with Monika finding her new friendship with the gnome Edy helps her connect to and bond with her beloved grandmother Lucyna. The Evil Wizard Endiku is determined to keep this trend of disbelief going, and to reduce Earth to a dark and dreary place, but readers are given no real motivation for his evil, other than a curse given in a prophecy at the birth of Endiku and his twin Gilgamesh. He is loved by his family, given a magic protective amulet, and treated kindly, but the moment he loses the amulet, he starts turning cold, greedy and cruel for no apparent reason other than that he can.
In the end, though, the moral message of the book is that cruelty and selfishness are no match for love, devotion, and courage, as personified not only by the grandmother and granddaughter and their magical friend Edy, but also by the farmer David whose devoted tending produced the magical apples needed to defeat Endiku, and by Gilgamesh, who loves his twin enough to struggle with him and attempt to bring him back. The real conflict of the story, though, takes no more than a page or two, and most of the book is spent lamenting the failure of belief among humanity, and extolling those who remain Golden Believers. This book will be best enjoyed by children with an imaginative and an artistic bent, who are willing and eager to believe in the existence of magic and its delights.
A brightly-illustrated fantasy story aimed at young children, Monika Anna Blichar’s MY MAGICAL GNOME STORY BOOK is charming, but hampered by a focus on a somewhat preachy message over plot.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader