It is truly an honor to be included on this list!
Margi is over the moon that "West of the Moon" was named one of the Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far) by Kirkus Reviews.
This richly woven coming-of-age story, inspired by Norwegian folklore and the author's family history, centers on thirteen-year-old Astri, a goat girl sold by her own aunt and uncle for "two silver coins and a haunch of goat" to a nasty, old, hunchbacked goat-man named Svaalberd. Armed with a troll treasure, a book of spells and curses, and a possibly magic hairbrush, Astri makes a clever escape, retrieves her little sister, and sets off on a dangerous journey to America, over the Norwegian mountains, through field and forest, and in and out of folktales and dreams as they steadily make their way east of the sun and west of the moon.
As Margi explains in her author's note, the novel was inspired by her Norwegian great-great-grandmother, who immigrated to America in 1851, and includes reproductions of some of her great-great-grandmother's papers.
