Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Girl Mayka and her animal friends are living stone figures, but with their creator long dead, they're beginning to lose the magic that keeps them alive. In search of help, Mayka ventures down from their mountaintop home to the world of men. Durst has created a compelling fantasy world; this quiet novel's emphasis on storytelling, bravery, challenging assumptions, and friendship should have middle-grade appeal. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A living stone girl leaves the isolated mountain where she lives to seek a stonemason who can keep her family alive.Father, a stonemason, was human. He carved their family: animals, two birds, and Mayka, a 12-year-old girl made from gray mountain granite. Stone beings don't cry, taste, sleep, or tirebut because Father carved marks on each one giving them life and their own unique stories, they move, talk, think, and feel. Since Father died, wind, water, and time have been wearing down the family's markings; recently, Turtle's markings so eroded that he stopped living. So Mayka gathers her courage and hikes down from their idyllic mountain into the city, accompanied by the flying stone birds. Her quest for a stonemason to recarve their markings leads to many revelations, each serious yet presented gently. As Mayka learns that Father was famous, that most stone beings serve flesh-and-blood "keepers," and that a city stonemason has invented a carving that enslaves, she begins to understand that she and her fellow carved creatures can interpret and stretch their own storieseven when those stories are literally carved in stone. Mayka's kindness and steady loyalty, her friends' animated and varied personalities, and some downright brilliant problem-solving will carve themselves into readers' memories.Thoughtful, colorful, strengthening, and understatedly tender. (Fantasy. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.