Gr 4–7— Orphan Lillian Velvet spends her dreary days stuck at home, rarely able to venture out from the watchful eye of her despicable grandmother. Her life is a checklist of homeschooling tasks and household chores until the morning of her 10th birthday. Mysteriously, Grandmother gives Lillian a pickle jar of strange coins, which she discovers will pay her toll to visit the world of Kingdoms and Empires. Lillian is whisked off on short trips to this enchanting land where she makes new friends and thrilling discoveries. Lillian's adventures develop an increasing sense of danger and urgency as she bounces through time, seeking answers to questions about herself, parents, and new friends. Lillian starts to notice common threads among her visits to Kingdoms and Empires. Will these threads help her solve the mystery of her own identity? Will she find what she needs before the entire world of Kingdoms and Empires becomes unraveled? Readers will have a hard time closing this book as they race to discover whether Lillian is the one pulling the threads apart or the only one who can knit them back together. Short chapters with alternating viewpoints, paired with a thrilling opening hook, will draw readers in from the first page. Lillian's adventures take an extended time to coalesce into the climax, but the story does not lose momentum. Middle grade fantasy and adventure enthusiasts will revel in the frequent visits to Kingdoms and Empires. Moriarty broadens appeal here with quirky, charming characters, and richly developed themes of friendship and family. This tale of Kingdoms and Empires works just fine as a standalone, but Moriarty fans will be thrilled to see this new installment in the series. VERDICT A must-have for any middle grade collection with fantasy lovers, and those who enjoy the likes of Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, and Lemony Snicket.— Jill Shepard

Lillian, a foundling, has a momentous tenth birthday: her one gift, a pickle jar full of gold coins, gives her access to a series of fantasy worlds. Without warning she is whisked off to the Luminous Forest, the Mellifluous Kingdom, the Kingdom of Kate-Bazaar, and so on: worlds of spells, genies, and mages. She is thrown into the middle of various disasters -- windstorms, near-drownings, and threats of fatal freezing -- before being arbitrarily whisked home again. The various plots do intersect, waving to each other briefly before ricocheting off in other directions until it all weaves together into a finale of reveals and revelry. Lillian is an Alice-like character, sturdy, intelligent, courteous, and with unexpected reserves of courage. In each of the hectic scenarios she is a force for good, although that can get tricky as the ethics of helpful intervention are by no means uncomplicated. This fifth volume in the series (most recently The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere, rev. 1/23) sparkles with energy, warm humor, outrageous metaphors, and a joyful alertness to the delights and challenges not just of the invented fantasy worlds but of our own as well. Sarah Ellis

A birthday gift, her very first, gives a 10-year-old Australian girl a chance to prove her mettle.Astounded though she is when the harshly repressive grandmother who has raised her in isolation presents her with a pickle jar full of gold coins, that's only the first of a string of wonders as Lillian is unexpectedly shoved over and over into the magical land of Kingdoms and Empires. There, she's informed by a mysterious collector that the coins pay for wishes. Each visit leads to encounters in which a person or creature (including, once, a huge dragon) is in a pickle and needs help. Actually, Lillian turns out to be a pawn in an evil and potentially deadly scheme, and around its twists and turns, Moriarty weaves a complex tale involving sprites and genies, time travel, fearsome dangers, hard decisions…and also the Mettlestones, a clan whose 11 sisters and their offspring have gone on to all sorts of splendid feats. The clan's close-knit, noisy dynamics give Lillian an eye-opening view of what family life could be like. Presented through multiple points of view, the tale has an overstretched feel; the author sends Lillian back and forth more than 15 times, strings out the suspenseful climax, and repeats herself occasionally. Still, watching kind, smart, and brave Lillian overcome an upbringing designed to leave her mousy and fearful makes for compelling reading, as does watching the intricacies of the plot unfold. Most characters read white.Absorbingly rich and strange. (Fantasy. 9-13)