‘There is magic in starlight, of course. This is well known. Moonlight, however. That is a different story. Moonlight is magic. Ask anyone you like.’

Every year the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as a sacrifice to the witch who lives in the forest. But the witch, Xan, is a kind one. She rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

But one year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna’s thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to enrage – with dangerous and thrilling consequences...

The cover state that this is a New York Times bestseller winner of the Newbery Medal 2017, and I understand why it got the award.

The story is great and sweet and warm. It teaches you about love, the true love of a family. Even it reminds me of my family and my grand father, it also almost made me cry nearing the end of the story. But no, I didn’t cry.

 For a book without a single illustration inside, it has a perfect amount of pages and easy to read. Even though it doesn’t have a single illustration inside, I still enjoy reading it which is a positive sign for a book (at least for me). The storyline is somewhat predictable, but it’s light and still fun to read.

I like how Barnhill write a naration about the legend of the witch told by a mother in some chapters, give the readers some hints to solve the mistery by ourself. Moreover, the book contain several beautiful poems which become one of favorite parts of the book. Even though I didn’t quite understand the poem (because it’s already hard to understand poem itself, moreover for a non english speaker like me), but I just love reading such a beautiful phrases arranged into one, don’t you?

Anyway, it also has such a beautiful ending, because there is the part of the ending which is happy and there is another part which is sad. It’s quite balanced if I must say. But one thing I can assure you, the ending won’t leave you with question mark about the unsolved mystery.