The Girl Who Drank the Moon Quotes by the Hobbit. This post contains affiliate links, you can find out more on our policies page or in the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog.
Know Before You Read
Book: The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Author: Kelly Barnhill
Publication Date: August 9, 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Coming of Age
Warnings: The book opens with, what is basically, a child sacrifice. You soon learn the child does not die – but you have a lot of kids who were separated from their parents. The mom in the opening story develops mental issues.
Pages: 323
Reading Age: 9 and up (suitable to read to 6+)
Brief The Girl Who Drank the Moon Summary
Annually the Protectorate has a Day of Sacrifice. The Witch in the Forest will destroy them unless the youngest baby is taken by and left in the forest to die; A somewhat Brothers Grimm beginning. However, Xan, the witch of the forest, has no idea why this happens, so she rescues the infants and delivers the infants to parents in the Outside Cities, feeding them starlight, on the journey.
When she rescues the baby who is left as the story begins Xan makes a mistake and feeds the infant moonlight. This fills her with magic, and Xan decides to raise her as her own child. There are many different turns as the story moves towards revealing where the evil that has been orchestrating the people of the Protectorate truly lies.
Related Content: The Ogress and the Orphan Quotes and Review
The Girl Who Drank the Moon Review (Contains spoilers)
Kelly Barnhill is a wordsmith. Her stories have a fairy tale quality that is also almost poetic. In The Girl Who Drank the Moon she builds a world with an immense amount of good but also festering evil. The story centers on Xan, the witch of the forest, who does not always remember well or make the right decision but does love well. She raises Luna, who was abandoned in the forest.
The story also tells of Luna’s biological mother. Separated by force from Luna, she is imprisoned – but develops magical abilities. And we have Antain, a young man who is a witness to many of the events. And we have the bog monster Glerk, and the small dragon Fyrian, who live with Xan.
All of these are well-developed characters. Barnhill crafts a small well-developed world that is simple but also complex. The book has a deeply spiritual sense to it and asks a number of complex questions (sometimes asking you to supply the answer, as a good book should).
I would suggest that, for younger readers, you clarify the opening. It could be somewhat frightening. Overall, the book definitely deserves the awards it has received. I think Lewis and Tolkien would both appreciate it. I enjoyed it and it is highly recommended.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon Discussion Guide
Major Themes to Discuss: Knowledge, love, family, how big are dragons?
Discuss the quotes:
- “With each lie he told, the next became easier.” This book shows the destruction and sorrow caused by lies and the power of truth. How easy is it to get sucked into lying? What happens?
- ” He could wield five swords at once—four hands and the prehensile tip of his tail—and was so formidable and agile and huge that his adversaries would often drop their weapons and call a truce. This was preferable for Glerk, who felt that violence, while sometimes necessary, was uncouth and uncivilized. Reason, beauty, poetry, and excellent conversation were his preferred tools for settling disputes.” This was a long quote, but it is important to get the context. Glerk was formidable, but he preferred not fighting. How do you think arguments should be settled?
- “Knowledge is a terrible power indeed.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
Other Discussion
- Who is your favorite character and why?
- Where do you see people trying to control and stay in power? Where do you see people loving and protecting in your world?
Continue Reading for our The Girl Who Drank the Moon Quotes
Other The Girl Who Drank the Moon Quotes
“Some of us,” Xan said, “choose love over power. Indeed, most of us do.”
Raising a baby—magical or not—is not without its challenges: the inconsolable crying, the near-constant runny noses, the obsession with putting very small objects into a drooling mouth.
Memory was a slippery thing—slick moss on an unstable slope—and it was ever so easy to lose one’s footing and fall. And anyway, five hundred years was an awful lot to remember.
A story can tell the truth, she knew, but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.
Love made him giddy. Love made him brave. Love made foggy questions clearer.
How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.
Perhaps her world was larger than it was before—as it is for children when they are no longer children.
-The Girl Who Drank the Moon Quotes
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