The Stone Girl’s Story is such a good exploration of story-making and moral free agency and growth and change. I am blown away by the depth of thought embedded in the story and the simple, understandable way in which the story unfolds.

Mayka, a living girl carved of stone, and her stone family of rabbits and birds and other creatures, live on the mountain where they were first created by the stonemason whom they called Father. They are animated and given their own stories by the marks the stonemason carved into their bodies when he made them. But Father eventually died and left the stone creatures he made behind. And now their marks are eroding and becoming faded and smooth. As their marks fade, the stone creatures will slowly wind down and come to a stop—unless they can find a new stonemason to re-carve their features and their stories.

To save herself and her friends, Mayka goes on a journey to find a stonemason. Like all fantasy journeys Mayka’s quest to save her family brings growth and change to Mayka herself, even if she is made of unyielding stone. Her companions on the journey are the stone birds, Risa and Jacklo, and along the way they meet Siannasi Yondolada Quilasa, Si-si for short, a tiny dragon with a big heart. With these friends and supporters, Mayka travels to the big city where she hopes to find another ally, a stonemason.

C.S. Lewis said of his Narnia stories that they were not allegories but rather “suppositions.”

“I did not say to myself ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’; I said, ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.'”

The Stone Girl’s Story also reads like a supposition: “Let us suppose world in which stone creatures can come to life, and someone wants to enslave and control the stone creatures. Then imagine what might happen.” And it’s a very good supposition. Recommended.

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This book also may be nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.