The Ogress and the Orphans

Story takes place in a folktale/fantasy world, but characters belong to different species (humans, crows, ogres, dragons). The issue of whether to view one another with welcoming kindness or suspicion looms large. Also learning one another's languages, and what a difference that makes. A pair of orphans are universally treated as twins despite the fact that from their body type to their skin color they look nothing alike. Different abilities -- or lack of them -- help define the characters: one orphan kid has a missing leg and gets around on crutches; another's two eyes see things differently (one shadows and light, one detail), which he says is an important reminder that there are different ways to look at things; the Ogress is very smart and inventive but can't read; a stone sees all, says little, but tells a tale only some can hear. Characters with different learning styles and worldviews contribute to a better understanding when they talk among themselves.

A dragon assumes the identity of other creatures by wearing the skins he's taken from their corpses. A lot of weapons are directed against the Ogress, who just wants to belong, but it's her heart that's broken. Her defenders, the crows, often pelted with stones by the townsfolk, attack her attackers with beak and claw, doing a lot of damage, advising each other to go for the eyes. A dog blinded by an abusive master finds a haven with the Ogress. A beloved old man's heart is slowly giving out. The butcher realizes "he had never killed anything in its life that wasn't tied up first." The massacre of trees by humans to build a town has far-reaching consequences.

Adult characters are occasionally described as drinking alcohol, leading in some cases to a night of drinking instead of problem-solving, and in another to drunken, threatening behavior.

Parents need to know that The Ogress and the Orphans, by Newbery Medal recipient Kelly Barnhill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon), is a parable about kindness, empathy, neighborliness, civic-mindedness, and the importance of libraries, in which the title characters -- scorned and mistreated by townspeople -- befriend and protect one another, to the betterment of all. As the author remarks in the afterword, the story springs from the experience of living through an era of pandemic and political divisiveness. Its steady drumbeat of messages about "the more you give, the more you have" and how "lovely" it is when everyone cheerfully funds public goods, from relentlessly positive but often one-note characters who exist mainly to embody an attitude, can get oppressive. But there are heartrendingly relatable moments, as when orphans ponder losing the only home they've ever known, when an old couple cope with the fact that one of them is dying, or when the Ogress's years of hidden kindness are repaid with violence and harsh words. There's a hissable villain in the town mayor, who's actually a rogue dragon who's learned to weaponize empathy to set the citizens at each other's throats as part of his plan to seize all of the town's wealth for himself. There's a lot of misunderstanding and cruelty as things unfold, but in the end, love rules the day.