Catherynne Valente has, with a minimum of fuss, written one of the great young-adult fantasy diptychs since Lewis Carroll. This one — along with its predecessor, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making — describes the adventures of September, an innocent, touchy, tender, clever and altogether real little girl who finds her way into Fairyland, a place that resonates with Narnia and Oz and Wonderland and half a dozen other places but which is utterly its own. In The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland September must reckon with her own shadow, who is now the mischievous queen of the underworld called Fairyland-Below. Valente has the rare gift of making new myths, literate and charming and beautiful stories that feel utterly real on the surface but whose roots reach down to the tales our deep unconscious selves tell us.