The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull

Source of book: Audiobook borrowed from the library

We had our introduction to Brandon Mull with Fablehaven, which we listened to on or trip to see the in-laws for Christmas. However, the fact that Fablehaven came first was due to an accident. Originally, I had ordered The Candy Shop War from our library. It’s a big system, and you can order stuff from branches a hundred or more miles away. For some reason, there ended up being a waitlist for it, so I left it on order and ordered Fablehaven, which came in first. Thus, we listened to that one, and then The Candy Shop War when it came in a month later.

Brandon Mull can certainly write an exciting and well-plotted book. If anything, this one is more like a mystery novel than the fantasy of Fablehaven. However, there are significant similarities that are perhaps themes in Mull’s writing. We will have to read/listen to more and see, I suppose.

First, a bit of the plot and the world Mull builds. As in Fablehaven, ordinary children discover a hidden world, which lurks just beneath the surface of the “real” one. In The Candy Shop War, it turns out that there are wizards who are searching for a treasure which lies in the town that the four children, Nate, Trevor, Summer, and “Pigeon” inhabit. These wizards are very old, and only survive by staying in their heavily enchanted lairs. Furthermore, they are largely immune to the effects of magic, which is most effective on children, and loses its potency as a person ages. Well, at least the kind of magic that can be used to do things. The magic that makes one oblivious to what is going on seems to work on everyone.

The four children happen to come into a new candy shop in town one day, and meet Mrs. White, who offers to let them earn special candy by doing tasks for her. The first one is weird: gathering mushrooms full of insect eggs using special bait, but the reward is amazing. They are given “moon rocks,” which make them light enough to leap great distances.

However, once the children are hooked, the tasks become more dangerous, and more morally questionable. Before they know it, they have broken into a museum to steal an artifact (that Mrs. White claims belonged to an ancestor), and robbed a grave. When she asks them to wipe the memory of the local ice cream man (who turns out also to be a wizard), they finally have had enough. Now, however, they are essentially fighting against Mrs. White, who has turned on them. Things eventually end up with a showdown between Mrs. White and the others, who have made a temporary truce to defeat the greater threat. In addition to Mr. Stott, the ice cream man, they join forces with John Dart, a sort of cross between a policeman and a mob enforcer within the wizard world.

A few things about this book. I’ll start with the one thing I didn’t like. This struck me with Fablehaven as well, but not as much. Mull simply writes awkwardly about race. It’s almost as if he was a white Mormon kid who grew up in largely middle-class, white surroundings, went to BYU, and...oh, that actually looks a good bit like his biography. So yes, when he mentions race, it’s not natural to him. In this book, it comes up in this context. To disguise themselves while doing their little burglary stunts, Mrs. White gives them “melting pot mixers,” which randomly change their race temporarily. As I said, awkward. Not the idea, but how it was handled. Basically, nothing changes. I grew up in a predominantly minority neighborhood, and believe me, plenty of things change. Let’s just say that in no way would I want to be African American and be breaking into a museum. Not the best plan for survival. Heck, even having a toy gun can be dangerous enough. And one can’t help but think that after the fact, in what appears to be a predominantly white town setting, the three black kids in school would have been hauled in for questioning after they appeared on the video camera. Just saying. This is the worst, but one gets the idea that Mull tries really hard to be colorblind, at the expense of actually noticing things. In that sense, the weakness in his writing is his lack of observation.

I feel silly in some ways even pointing this out, because this is, for goodness sake, just a kid fantasy book. It’s not expected to be great writing, and one isn’t necessarily expecting depth of characterization. Anthony Trollope this is not, and makes no pretence of being. Still, just, I guess, a bit awkward.

That out of the way, there are so many things to love about this book. The ending is outstanding, sneaking up even on me, who usually does a good job of guessing when I read murder mysteries. The ending was a surprise of the best kind, leaving one feeling the opposite of cheated. On a related note, Mull did a fantastic job of plotting and pacing this book. Looking back, it was just like the best of mysteries, as no object, no detail, no occurrence was forgotten or accidental. Details mattered, and were not just there for decoration. In contrast, there was a little bit of a deux ex machina feel to the ending of Fablehaven. In context, it was a good ending, and fit with the imaginative world it was set in. In The Candy Shop War, success depended so much on the quick wits of the protagonists that it really required that the children would have to find a way themselves without powerful outside aid.

Another thing I loved about this book was the sheer imagination of the world. The foundation idea that “don’t take candy from strangers” wasn’t just an invention of modern helicopter parents, but an ancient saying to protect children from the wiles of devious wizards was a nice starting point. From there, one suspects that the ideas for the candies themselves arose from the author spending days just dreaming of cool ideas. There is no end to the creativity, and one suspects that if book length were not an issue, he could have kept right on going.

The attractions of this book weren’t just those of the imagination, however. If Fablehaven sometimes felt a bit like an allegory of Original Sin, The Candy Shop War poses more immediate ethical dilemmas. How does one know who to trust? Those who seem nice may or may not be that way at heart. And who is telling the truth? How do you know? One of the answers suggested is that those who have something to gain will often hide crucial details. Once you know the possible motives, things are not as benign as they seem. This seems to be a good thing for kids to contemplate. At least to a lawyer who thinks that “follow the money” would have saved a client or two from falling for scams.

Other questions contemplated are whether the end ever justifies the means, is revenge something we should seek, and how does one avoid the corruption of power. Good things to think about, in any case. Mull does a decent job with these themes. He’s no Terry Pratchett  - who is as good as they come at writing moral thinking into his books - but he is no slouch either. 

Just a word on the common ideas I have noted in both books. First I already mentioned, which is realistic setting, but with a hidden world. Another is the idea of the fuse. In Fablehaven, malevolent beings are secured with knots. In order to untie a knot, the being must do a favor at the request of another. The magic power in the knot is released to do the favor. Likewise, in this book, there is a character who is called a “fuse.” He can only do so much magic before he loses his ability to exist. The amount he has used is represented by how much of his body is covered with a birthmark. When he has no normal skin left, he dies. Just an interesting parallel. I suppose either could have a metaphorical idea behind it - or at least one it would be possible to create. The third parallel is the connection between food and drink and magic. This isn’t original to Mull, obviously, but he seems fond of it. (Likewise, I think Mull likes food, because even the non-magical stuff gets heavy play in his books.) In this book, the white fudge causes stupor and lack of awareness, while the milk in Fablehaven gives sight of the hidden world. An interesting idea.

There is a sequel to this book, apparently, but it is not (yet) part of a longer series like Fablehaven. I suppose it doesn’t lend itself to that. Once the secret about the magic candy is out, the protagonists, at least, will never be as innocently drawn into the world of wizards. Future antagonists will need to find a new tool.

My kids love Brandon Mull. They’ve already checked out the next Fablehaven book in print form. (Which means I need to play catch-up…) These have been a great addition to our traveling audiobook list. The great pacing and plots do a good job at keeping the driver awake, and they help the miles melt away. The Candy Shop War was enjoyable, and all of us recommend it. 

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

Source of book: Audiobook from the Library

This author was suggested to us by a law school colleague and friend. Okay, I suppose it was suggested to us by my friend’s children, but whatever. 

I am pleased to report that this book was a huge success with my kids. (I liked it too, but the kids’ opinion is what counts, since we will probably be listening to more on our trips.) In fact, my younger son liked it so much that he spent his Barnes and Noble gift card on a print copy for himself.

Brandon Mull is an interesting character. Apparently, he is a Mormon (according to his bio on the cover), and about my age. Fablehaven was a smash hit, and has become the first of a five-book series. With more planned. And he also wrote a couple of other series. So, we could be busy listening to these for a while.

The premise of Fablehaven is interesting. Youngsters Kendra and Seth spend a couple of weeks on their grandparents’ property while their parents are on a cruise. While there, they discover that the vast estate is actually a sanctuary, rather like a wildlife refuge. Except that it is for fairy creatures. This idea of a network of conservancies around the world for the preservation of creatures that most don’t believe exist is a pretty good one, I must say.

Mull carries the idea further in a couple of ways. First, the refuges protect not just the cute and “good,” but also the less beloved, or even “evil” fairy creatures, such as trolls. To protect everyone involved, there is an extensive treaty governing what can and cannot be done by mortals and fairies. For example, there is a sort of magical lex talionis, that “mischief shall be repaid with mischief,” and doing magic makes one vulnerable to magic, and so on.

The other way he extends the concept is by setting up an outside villain, the mysterious “Society of the Evening Star,” which is intent on destroying the refuges, on the grounds that they are a sort of “incarceration” of magical creatures, rather than a way to preserve them. In a way, this is like the Fairyland equivalent of PETA. There is a deeper metaphor, though.

It was hard not to see the entire book as being a parable of the fall of mankind, as the Christian (and Mormon) tradition sees it. Not that it is the only thing going on in this story, but the parallels and potential metaphors are definitely a huge part of the story. Thus the Evening Star (read: Lucifer - the Devil) is seeking “freedom” which isn’t freedom, disobedience looses the demon, and a bunch of other bits that clearly tend to function as theological touchstones. Mull does cite C. S. Lewis as one of his influences, so perhaps this should be no surprise.

That said, I do not want to create the impression that this book is heavy-handed. In fact, unless one already had the theological background, it might not even be all that noticeable. With an open mind toward the story as story, the book is exciting, suspenseful, and highly creative. Mull does indeed create a believable world, an idea that draws on existing myth while creating its own twists. The characters, too, are memorable, particularly the naiad who embraces mortality in exchange for love and adventure, and the plucky grandmother who has to figure out how to communicate after being changed into a chicken.

There are a few things worth mentioning, which I do not believe will spoil the plot. First is the fact that Mull draws from a variety of mythological traditions. There are the usual Greco-Roman myths, from Naiads to Satyrs. There are the European fairies and trolls, and the like. But there is also a Golem (not to be confused with Gollum), the creature made from earth of Jewish mythology. And then, there is the demon that threatens to be unleashed on the world, named Bahumat in the book, but I presume to be named after Bahamut, the giant fish supporting the earth in Arabian mythology. Fun connections.

There are a few notes that seemed a bit sour to me. The primary one was the bit about how Bahumat was imprisoned. The Native Americans, apparently, couldn’t figure out how to fight him, so it took the Europeans with their superior magic to imprison him. This seemed wholly unnecessary to the story, and likely an example of white tone deafness. Not that I would have preferred a “Magical Negro” description either. It would have been enough to have mentioned that Bahumat was eventually defeated and imprisoned without bringing history into it. After all, the rest of the book is fantasy anyway, so who cares if it is even set in a real world?

The other thing that bothered me was Mull’s harping on the necessity of innocence. Seth is a brat, to be sure. He is annoying as heck for the first half of the book, and he does screw everything up. (Again, a bit of a metaphor for The Fall.) But even though I personally identify with Kendra, the goody-two-shoes of the story - I too am a color-in-between-the-lines sort most of the time, I found this a bit too much. The growth of the characters would have been better if Kendra would have at least felt the pull of curiosity.

But these are minor quibbles in light of the whole story, which is well paced for suspense and adventure. This was a perfect traveling audiobook, helping the miles melt away for passengers and the driver. The kids loved it, so we will be adding this author to our regular traveling list.