Book Title: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
Author: T. Kingfisher
Stars: 4.5 out of 5 

Spoilers Ahead!

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher is a well written fantasy story about a fourteen year old baker called on to defend her city from invasion. Our delightfully upfront protagonist is Mona. She works at her Aunt’s bakery and lives in a tiny room over the glassblower’s shop six doors down the street. Tragically her parents are dead, so her Aunt and Uncle are her only family. Fortunately, despite these stereotypes, her Aunt is a generally good, strong force in Mona’s life. And even her Uncle is supportive and caring. 

Mona’s usual routine at the bakery starts early in the morning, but on this particular day things go terribly wrong. There is a dead body on the floor of the kitchen and soon the esteemed Inquisitor Oberon is accusing Mona of murder. Turns out that more and more people are looking suspiciously at wizards and someone is actively trying to kill them all. Mona is quickly caught up in a plot to eradicate all the city’s wizards and wrestle control from the Duchess. Dodging death and adults, Mona seeks out the one person who should be able to help her, the Duchess. Only the Duchess isn’t in as much control as she thought. And there is a large army marching up to the gates of the city. With the city’s own army out, and most of the wizards dead, Mona is one of the few magic users still around to help fight back the invasion and save her home. 

Mona is a fun, engaging lead character. We meet a few other interesting folks along the way, but as this story is told in the first person, it is all about Mona. As a bread wizard, her skills include making sure bread doesn’t burn while baking and causing gingerbread men to dance for customers. These are all minor tricks. And while her magic grows by the end of the story into giant dough golems and a horde of evil gingerbread men, it is still all bread related. 

The magic system is an interesting mix of amazing power, limited only by the creativity of the wizard and the medium in which they work. For Mona that is bread. For other wizards that could be flowers or water. For one woman in the city it is dead horses, which sounds far more morbid than it was in the book. I appreciate the simplicity of the discussion of magic, it was not trained or taught, just something a few citizens had which allowed them to do things in their specialty. Like Mona could make sure her bread didn’t burn in the oven. 

The city is set in a world of city states. Since Mona has not traveled, we only get the barest overview of the other cities. Like most of them don’t like wizards, an easy form of prejudice to explore in fantasy novels. It parallels the prejudice and hate faced by many groups in real life, in an easy way for younger readers to understand and relate to. The numerous city states mean lots of conflict between them too, as groups of people are want to do. 

This is a young adult book. As Mona is only fourteen, there are definite moments of child versus adult in this book. The solution to Mona’s hiding from the constabulary is to break into the castle and speak with the Duchess. There is an interesting tension between the role of child and adult in the story. Mona expects the adults to fix the problems, which of course they don’t because she is the protagonist. While the story has good pacing, I personally found it lingered too long on the preparations and battle at the end. That was the least interesting aspect of the tale. 

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking (I really do love the title) was a fun read. It would be a good read for a younger audience, but the writing and world description make it a good read for adults too. Overall, I give this 4.5 out of 5 stars.