Asterwood by Jacquelyn Stolos
on December 30, 2025
ISBN: 0593814843
Genres: Fantasy
Format: Middle Grade Fiction
Goodreads

Asterwood is a middle-grade fantasy novel about a girl named Madelyn who lives with her father on the edge of a forest in New Hampshire. Madelyn and her father, Ezra, have only had each other for her whole life, but now, in middle school, she’s started to feel lonely and has more and more questions about her mother. Though her father has warned her not to go into the woods alone or down the “path of no return,” she finds she can’t help herself when her cat, Dots, runs down the path and shimmers out of view. On the other side, she discovers a group of kids who call themselves the “new hopefuls” and are trying to save the violet root (a source of power in their world — Asterwood). We discover that the antagonist is a group of “tree eaters” -humans who are trying to get all of the violet root possible to hoard the power of the root. As Madelyn learns more about Asterwood and the coming destruction, she finds out more about herself and her parents than she ever expected.

This is a great middle-grade fantasy that will appeal to readers who love magical worlds and especially those with an environmental interest. In many ways, it reminded me of a middle-grade version of “The Lorax” as the young children fight against the adults who are destroying the forest and Asterwood due to their greed.

One caution would be that the book includes a group of adults who are cannibals and steal young children to eat them. Though it is not graphically described, this idea could be upsetting to younger readers. This would be a good fit for readers in seventh grade and up, depending on the reader, and libraries that serve readers of that age. This was a four-star read for me; I loved Asterwood and the characters, but some aspects of it (ex. cannibalism) didn’t work for me. Reviewed by Katy Jones, Gardiner Area High School Library, Gardiner