★★★★★ A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies, by Alix E Harrow
The Witch and the Wardrobe, without the Lion
A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies
Alix E Harrow
The Witch and the Wardrobe, without the Lion
Despite its title, A Witch’s Guide to Escape, a short story by Alix E. Harrow, is about libraries. But why do I find that surprising? Since the invention of books, libraries have always been the best escape portals. The Goodreads plot description is surprisingly good -- informative and accurate without spoiling, so I will just cheat and quote it here.
It turns out that most librarians are secretly witches. They can smell what kind of book you need, and intuit the size of your fine from the slope of your shoulders. Our narrator isn’t just a witch and a librarian: she’s someone who cares about her patrons. So when a black teenage boy comes in with waves of yearning billowing off him, she does everything she can to help.
The story is told, in Harrow's characteristically gorgeous prose, from the point of view of an appealing witch/librarian whose name, if it is ever mentioned, I did not catch. She is not a rule-follower. She expresses opinions like
It’s official library policy to report truants to the high school, because the school board felt we were becoming “a haven for unsupervised and illicit teenage activity.” I happen to think that’s exactly what libraries should aspire to be, and suggested we get it engraved on a plaque for the front door.
One of the most appealing things about A Witch’s Guide to Escape is that most of the books mentioned (and listed with title, author, and shelving information) are real books, and Harrow clearly expects her readers to have read them and apply them to the story. (I confess I have not read all of them. The sixteen-book Tavalarrian Chronicles seem to be fictional, I was relieved to find.)
A truly beautiful story. You can read it in ten minutes, and it's free. What are you waiting for?
A Witch’s Guide to Escape can be read free online here.