Lies of a Toymaker

“In this fun fantasy novel, a girl explores her sense of identity and purpose in a world where toys come alive.” —Foreword Reviews In Lies of a Toymaker, a retelling of the classic Pinocchio, Paige, a queer teen and wooden toymaker’s daughter, is slowly turning into wood, and must cross the demonic Land of Toys to stop the evil Deathsprites before they destroy her world. Award-winning author Kelly Jacobson (Tink and Wendy, Robin and Her Misfits) delivers her latest fairytale retelling in this reimagining of the fairytale classic Pinocchio. Paige (a queer 18-year-old girl) is a wooden toymaker’s daughter dragged from state to state as her mother, Petta Vitaly, hawks her creations from their caravan. When they finally return to Petta’s hometown, Paige discovers Toy Palace, her family’s animatronic toy business, but she keeps the discovery from her mother—only to find that she has begun to turn into a wooden marionette. Paige breaks into Toy Palace and discovers a captive fairy in one of the upper rooms of Toy Palace, Prince Alexio, who shows her that an entire realm, the Land of Toys, has been destroyed by fairies called the Deathsprites—and that her family has been using Prince Alexio’s powers to help the evil fairies gain power through the animatronic toys they have been selling for the last eighteen years. Paige runs away from Toy Palace and the captive prince, only to have her mother rescue him instead. He finds Paige and sneaks her into the Land of Toys, where the Deathsprites have been turning sweet toys into terrible monsters determined to kill everything in their path. With the help of the talking cricket and Paige’s newfound strength as a marionette, the two must cross the realm of piled toy parts and frightful creations to stop the Deathsprites from making a portal to Earth that will bring destruction on that planet, too. Lies of a Toymaker is a queer feminist YA retelling of the classic that reexamines what it means to “lie” for the benefit of others, and how the lines between truth and fiction are not always as clear as they seem. The book is told from several different perspectives, but follows Paige’s journey most centrally. Many classics from the original story make an appearance, such as the whale, the talking cricket, the fox and the cat, and the Fairy with Azure Hair.