The Hatmakers

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What a delightfully magical read! I had such a great time, & I’m so sad I don’t have more in my hands to read right now! Lol Cordelia comes from a long line of magical hatmakers, who weave alchemy & enchantment into every hat. In Cordelia's world, Making - crafting items such as hats, cloaks, watches, boots & gloves from magical ingredients - is a rare & ancient skill, & only a few special Maker families remain. When Cordelia’s father Prospero and his ship, the Jolly Bonnet, are lost at sea during a mission to collect hat ingredients, Cordelia is determined to find him. But her Uncle Tiberius and Aunt Ariadne have no time to help the littlest Hatmaker, for an ancient rivalry between the Maker families is threatening to surface. Even worse, someone seems to be using Maker magic to start a war. It’s up to Cordelia to find out who, and why . . . One to recommend to fans of Michelle Harrison and if you’re after more magical millinery, there’s always Howl’s Moving Castle too by the incomparable Diana Wynne Jones.

Free Netgalley book for review ~~ Just as fun as the first book! I’d highly recommend this series. If there’s a sequel as I will definitely read it. At the end of the Middle Ages, a group of hatmakers from the Low Countries migrated across the North Sea to London. These men brought with them new skills and technologies, unknown to English artisans, becoming the first to manufacture brimmed felts hats in England. However, though their wares were immediately popular with English consumers, from courtiers to ordinary people, they faced an economic environment in London that restricted and sometimes completely disallowed the production and retail of their goods. In the early years of the sixteenth century, the hatmakers' desire to remain independent from regulation and governance by London civic guilds led to their formation of a craft association of their own. The Hatmakers' fraternity of St James operated for about a decade, until in 1511 the royal council mandated their amalgamation with and subordination to the powerful London Haberdashers' Company. In their short period of independence, the Hatmakers' guild wrote bilingual ordinances, in English and Dutch, regulating the craft of hatmaking in London. The small parchment booklet in which they wrote the ordinances, now housed in the London Guildhall Library, contains more than a simple list of craft rules: it reveals how these Dutch craftsmen negotiated their immigrant lives in both the specifics of their artisanal practice and the broader social and linguistic realities of their daily interactions.Cordelia comes from a long line of magical milliners, who weave alchemy and enchantment into every hat. In Cordelia's world, Making - crafting items such as hats, cloaks, watches, boots and gloves from magical ingredients - is a rare and ancient skill, and only a few special Maker families remain. When Cordelia's father Prospero and his ship, the Jolly Bonnet, are lost at sea during a mission to collect hat ingredients, Cordelia is determined to find him. But Uncle Tiberius and Aunt Ariadne have no time to help the littlest Hatmaker, for an ancient rivalry between the Maker families is threatening to surface. Worse, someone seems to be using Maker magic to start a war. It's up to Cordelia to find out who, and why . . . I'm really hoping there will be a sequel to this, especially with the surprise at the end. I'd love to learn more about the other Makers and hopefully see them come together and make more awesome outfits! That's surprising, because cliche characters usually bother me SOO much, but somehow this was NICE cliche. Which makes no sense, but I just found it kinda cute and endearing. And I did like Cordelia- she was a very strong female MC and I was rooting for her throughout the book. I also enjoyed the way all the characters complimented each other and how they all had such different personalities. So, yes, maybe a little 1-dimensional but since it's middle grade and I still thought they were cute, I'll let it slide. A gorgeous adventure from exceptional new storytelling talent, Tamzin Merchant, featuring beautiful illustrations by Paola Escobar.

The magical elements, which should have really made the book come alive, instead felt shoe-horned in, because there was never any real purpose to them. The central conflict was that of the Maker families decades long quarrel, and the magic wasn’t actually necessary to the story. Instead, crazy magic materials were rattled off in each chapter, creating a laundry list of magical items, that were never fully explored and never came into their own. They were there for the sake of being there, rather than for a specific purpose.Enter a spellbinding world in this soaring magical adventure, perfect for fans of Nevermoor, A Pinch of Magic and Rooftoppers. It’s an interesting idea, and I can see that the author was going for the zaniness and comedy ludicrousness of a Ronald Dahl book, and the whimsy of Diana Wynne Jones. But unfortunately it never reached those points. Puffin started out as a non-fiction publisher, with its first title appearing in 1940. As the most iconic and well-known children’s book brand in the UK today, we are always on the lookout for innovative ways to tell the world’s favourite stories and for brilliant new debut talent and brands that connect with today’s young readers, from newborn up to twelve years old.