Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
Wayward Creatures
Dayna Lorentz · 2022
88/100
👍 Worth It
This NCTE Charlotte Huck Award winner earns every bit of its acclaim — the dual Gabe-and-Rill narrative is a genuinely inventive structure, and Gabe's accountability arc after accidentally starting a forest fire is handled with a seriousness and nuance that's rare in middle grade. It's slow and interior, so plot-hungry readers may need patience, but emotionally prepared 8–12 year olds will find something real here. One of the better middle-grade novels of its year.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety85
substance88
craft90
originality84
accuracy88
hype70
age-fit84
human-eye90
Penny’s verdict88
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