The Magical Adventures of Quizzle and Pinky Palm
Both whimsical and wise, The Magical Adventures of Quizzle and Pinky Palm is an appealing introduction to a magical crew.
With a colorful cast of woodland animals and magical creatures, Teresa Mae Waterland’s enchanting short story collection The Magical Adventures of Quizzle and Pinky Palm delivers lessons related to friendship, community, and forgiveness.
In the magical realm of Tree Forest and Justaroundthebend, Quizzle and Pinky Palm are best friends. Quizzle is a fairy who’s eager to master the use of her wings; Pinky Palm is an everyanimal—a creature upon whom others at first project reflections of themselves, but who otherwise appears as a gopher. Together, they love exploring, meeting new creatures (and the occasional talking rock), and practicing their magic.
The friends’ adventures are recounted in twelve short stories that range from four to seventeen pages in length. The stories follow as the friends encounter a well-meaning but excitable canine, Mrs. Grupple; shy Millie Mole; and a grouchy gnome, Mr. Grumpkin. But despite interpersonal differences and occasional quarrels, the inhabits of Tree Forest and Justaroundthebend support one another, illustrating the importance of community. Quizzle and Pinky Palm befriend a lonely troll, TT; Ricky Rabbit stands up for Millie Mole; and the whole community comes together to search for Mrs. Grupple. A colored map appears at the book’s beginning to help with tracking these events; it shows the various places mentioned throughout the stories.
Some of the stories are lighthearted; others are serious. Without fail, though, the stories’ conclusions are uplifting (though one is ambiguous on a characters’ ultimate fate). In one tale, TT the troll struggles to forgive the goats who lied to him; he is softened by an unexpected friendship. In another, Mr. Grumpkin grieves the loss of his wife; he is given a second chance by a slippery slide. Elsewhere, Pinky Palm helps solve an argument between two squirrels—a reminder that everyanimals are masterful at balancing their whimsy with wisdom, as they can place themselves in others’ places and see different perspectives well.
Various characters share narrative duties throughout the collection, through which random bits of rhyme also appear. These variations often upset the narrative’s flow, as with the sudden changes to sentence structures that are are necessary to accommodate the rhymes. Some word choices, including “opportunistic” and “gregarious,” are awkward fits with the rest of the prose—and are more advanced than the book’s general reading level. Further, the complementary illustrations are dispersed in a disproportionate manner: some stories include several, others just a couple. Still, their pastel shades and soft watercolors are soothing, helping to balance out scarier subject matters, as with the shadow catchers who come for Quizzle and Pinky Palm in the forest.
Setting the stage for further adventures, the stories of The Magical Adventures of Quizzle and Pinky Palm introduce magical friends and their supportive community.
Reviewed by
Vivian Turnbull
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
