I’ve already enjoyed a couple of young adult fantasy novels by author Jessica Day George, Princess of the Midnight Ball and Princess of Glass, but this book is for a younger, middle grade audience, about third through fifth grade.

Eleven year old Princess Celie has a couple of older brothers and an older sister who love her dearly but are somewhat bossy and annoying at least some of the time, and she lives in a Castle that reinvents itself frequently, especially on Tuesdays. Castle Glower chooses and cares for the royal family, and the Castle loves Celie best of all. (It sort of talks to her.)

So when Prince Khelsh of Vhervhine comes for a visit and stays to usurp the throne and take over the Kingdom of Sleyne, it’s Celie who can (kind of) communicate with the Castle Glower and enlist its help in ejecting the intruders. The process isn’t easy, however, especially since Celie’s loving parents, King Glower the Seventy-Ninth and Queen Celina are missing, presumed dead, after a journey to fetch her oldest brother Bran upon his graduation from the College of Wizardry.

I tried to get my reluctant reader, Z-baby, age 11, interested in this book, but she said, “No pictures. No way.” Maybe I’ll read it to her, or at least start reading it to her. (Insert evil cackle, heh, heh, heh.) She might just want to know how it ends if I break off in the middle.

Tuesdays at the Castle was nominated and shortlisted last year for the Cybils Award for Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy, published in early October just about at the cut-off date. It’s a delightful story, and I recommend it highly.