Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

An 8-year-old urchin, "one-fourth street dirt and three-fourths stolen food scraps," finds herself caught up in an agonizing struggle to reconcile conflicting loyalties.The Crowns, a ragged band of waifs, is the only family Duck has ever known-so when its sneering, verbally abusive leader proposes planting her in a bakery as an apprentice to steal food and money, she is eager to prove herself. However, Master Griselde Baker is not only sharp as a tack, but possessed of a heart and capacity for love as outsized as her exceptionally tall and sturdy body. So it isn't long before Duck's walls of fear and silence begin to crack, along with her resolve. In interleaved chapters Eagar lays down another, tragicomic, storyline narrated by a gloomy gargoyle that has been overlooking the town for more than a century from atop an abandoned, partly built cathedral and feeling useless while railing at pesky pigeons and insulting its fellow grotesques. The author does make these lines converge at the end in a (literally) miraculous climax, but more impressive are the ways she not only wields atmospheric language to make both her vaguely medieval, vaguely French setting and the art and craft of bread making vivid, but kneads her protagonist (the two-legged one) into a resilient, responsible soul who can stay true to everyone she loves no matter how difficult or disagreeable. The main human cast is White presenting; two supporting characters have brown skin.Ambitious, absorbing, and, at times, mouthwatering. (Historical fantasy. 11-15)

School Library Journal Starred Review (Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Gr 37 For 90 years, a group of stone gargoyles watched from atop the unfinished cathedral that overlooks Odierne, before a woman, escaping the constables with her baby, jumps from beside their perch into the raging river below. Eight years later, the Crowns, eight children devoted to one another and to survival, arrive in the town and find themselves in the cathedral, a place that hasn't yet been claimed by any other gang, and decide to stay. To do this, they place their youngest member Duck as an apprentice with Odierne's baker, from whom she can skim coins and bread for the family. The plot develops smoothly as Duck faces increasingly difficult choices while learning from her new master in her first permanent home, and while witnessing new dangers for the only family she has ever known. The gargoyles, with one as a narrator, are used as a bookend for the story, providing readers with the cathedral's and Duck's background. As Duck becomes more familiar with breadmaking and reading, she continues to look for a way to take care of her entire family while juggling her own blossoming dreams. Eagar has written a complex and layered novel, with a vivid setting of medieval France and powerful themes of home and community. VERDICT A first purchase for libraries where Adam Gidwitz's The Inquisitor's Tale is popular. Betsy Fraser

Horn Book (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Eight-year-old Duck, orphaned as an infant, is the youngest member of a gang of urchins called the Crowns, who forage and pickpocket and scam their way through Avilogne (think medieval France) to survive -- barely. In the city of Odierne, the Crowns find temporary shelter in a crumbling, abandoned cathedral watched over by forgotten, brooding, sentient gargoyles, one of whom narrates interspersed chapters. Duck is reluctantly apprenticed to kindly, trusting baker Griselde, who is nearly blind, in order to carry out ruthless gang-leader Gnat's scheme to steal from Griselde on a regular basis. And we're off -- into a riveting novel full of tension and action; sensory-rich scenes and settings; and vividly portrayed, believable characters. As the seasons progress, we experience with Duck her moral dilemmas (taking advantage of the generous but vulnerable Griselde feels wrong); crisis of identity as she is torn between being a loyal apprentice and serving the Crowns; growing attachment not just to Griselde but to the wider community to which she now belongs; a terrible, costly betrayal; and an ultimate rescue. There are revelations at the end (one involving the gargoyle narrator), but they're as nuanced as the rest of the novel. Eagar's themes never feel tacked on but instead are thoroughly kneaded into her characters and story. Martha V. Parravano

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

An 8-year-old urchin, "one-fourth street dirt and three-fourths stolen food scraps," finds herself caught up in an agonizing struggle to reconcile conflicting loyalties.The Crowns, a ragged band of waifs, is the only family Duck has ever known-so when its sneering, verbally abusive leader proposes planting her in a bakery as an apprentice to steal food and money, she is eager to prove herself. However, Master Griselde Baker is not only sharp as a tack, but possessed of a heart and capacity for love as outsized as her exceptionally tall and sturdy body. So it isn't long before Duck's walls of fear and silence begin to crack, along with her resolve. In interleaved chapters Eagar lays down another, tragicomic, storyline narrated by a gloomy gargoyle that has been overlooking the town for more than a century from atop an abandoned, partly built cathedral and feeling useless while railing at pesky pigeons and insulting its fellow grotesques. The author does make these lines converge at the end in a (literally) miraculous climax, but more impressive are the ways she not only wields atmospheric language to make both her vaguely medieval, vaguely French setting and the art and craft of bread making vivid, but kneads her protagonist (the two-legged one) into a resilient, responsible soul who can stay true to everyone she loves no matter how difficult or disagreeable. The main human cast is White presenting; two supporting characters have brown skin.Ambitious, absorbing, and, at times, mouthwatering. (Historical fantasy. 11-15)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Fished out of a river as a baby by a gang of young pickpockets called the Crowns, eight-year-old Duck has only known an itinerant life of petty larceny governed by strict loyalty to the group-s derisive leader, Gnat. In the fictional French town of Odierne, the Crowns settle in the ruins of an unfinished, unnamed cathedral, where Gnat devises a plan to keep them fed: Duck will apprentice to milky-eyed baker Griselde and from this position slip the crew coins and bread. Despite her reluctance to leave the only family she-s ever known, Duck agrees to the scheme; working alongside kind Griselde, though, Duck unexpectedly discovers a talent for baking, then