There’s a new fantasy book out starring Muslim kids! Click here to read an interview with the author (the source of the pic above, btw) in which she reveals some interesting tidbits about her experience getting published, including the fact that if you wind up getting a book deal while you’re in college, they might count it as your thesis!

On to my review: In The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi, a Bangladeshi-American tween named Farah, And Her Two Friends, have to battle a sadistic, hidden game-master in order to rescue her brother from a board game. They have to play by his rules – showing up on time for each game, not making it too obvious they’re trying to bust out, and only looking for poor Ahmad during their few moments of free time. The games include, for example, life-size Mancala with holes big enough to fall into that are also full of bones, so the whole thing is very cinematic veering on kiddie-appropriate horror.

My favorite characters were the other prisoners of the game, who populate what’s basically a timeless Bangladeshi city complete with souk and palaces. The tween MC’s meet a mysterious woman who keeps feeding them decadent lunches and then forgetting them entirely, a cute guy in a hot air balloon who’s been trapped in this world since he was their age (I don’t think he was described as cute in-text but he appealed to me and I liked the resolution of his storyline), and best of all–a Resistance composed entirely of lizards, led by Henrietta Peel. Yes, a female resistance captain who is also a lizard. I sure hope there’s fan art!

The comparisons between the elevator pitches for The Gauntlet and that movie Jumanji are obvious, and possibly also to Labyrinth, but like JKR (who also built on the shoulders of MANY giants), Riazi shines most in all the bits that are completely new – the cultural setting, for example, and the surprise resolution. Warning for readers who are the type to get hungry for what they read – you are going to need snacks. There’s even a game about snacks–that was one of my favorite parts.

Props to Riazi for a poignant bit of imagery in which we find out, when Farah gets the chance to drink moonlight, that it “tastes lonely.” I love concepts like that. Also, Farah’s from New York City and has just moved to a less diverse school where she’s the only hijabi, so when she sees others who look like her in the game-world’s marketplace, her reaction is “the feeling spread through her, a gulp of seltzer, bright and bubbly…”

There are bits where I felt like the references to real life got too detailed–for example, at one point they have to do something reminiscent of riding a skateboard, and it’s not just “like riding a skateboard”, there’s an extra note thrown in there that it was her cousin who taught her to ride–but maybe these are there to give the audience a greater picture of Farah’s “regular” life since we only meet her the morning of her getting sucked into the game.

I would highly recommend The Gauntlet as a book to hand the young person in your life who’s into the “kids getting into fantastical adventures” genre. I did have a good time reading it, but I guess I haven’t read very much Middle Grade lit in the past twenty years because it did feel a bit young for me (but it should! I am not the target audience; I’ll be thirty-six this fall.)

TW for random blood and bones that don’t…. belong to any of the MC’s? Just used as horror elements.