Going to a magical world always has one big letdown: going home. Returning to the world of the mundane just feels like a letdown after epic magical adventures. 
 So you can guess what happens in "The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There," Catherynne Valente's exquisite second novel about the adventures of a little girl named September. Valente's writing is as whimsical and lush as ever, bringing us back into an eccentric fantasyland that Lewis Caroll would be richly jealous of. 
 A year has passed since September's return, and she's been patiently waiting for the Green Wind. But when she manages to return, she finds herself in a very different part of Fairyland, far from her old friends -- and she learns that something is terribly wrong. Shadows are being stolen away into Fairyland Below, and no one knows exactly why. 
 Realizing that her own lost shadow is connected to this, September sets out to reclaim all the lost shadows from "Halloween, the Hollow Queen, Princess of Doing What You Please, and Night's Best Girl." Accompanied by the shadow of A-Through-L, she ventures into the mysterious land of tea, parties, goblins, minotaurs, dodos and the Weeping Eel. But soon September finds that she isn't the only one who has been pulled into Fairyland... 
 Catherynne Valente's first children's book was one of the best fantasy books of that year -- it was witty, whimsical and quirky. "The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There" has the same brand of charm, but Valente deepens the story slightly as she explores some of her heroine's more elusive desires. She's growing up, little by little. 
 We see this through the mirroring of September -- bright, sensible, clever and a little rash -- and her unrestrained shadow twin Halloween. Rather than a straightforward Spunky Little Girl, it subtlely expands September into a person with two sides that have been split apart. And she's not the only one whose "shadow side" is explored either -- some almost-familiar faces appear in Fairyland Below. 
 Valente's writing is as lovely as ever, full of sensual beauty -- forests made of tinkling glass, peppermint-flavored moonkin, moonlit revels, machine-beasts and bejewelled seas. She weaves in some delightfully witty moments ("That's how villains get you, she knew. You feel badly for them, and next thing you know, you're tied to train tracks"), but the slightly twee tone never undermines the emotional power that September's quest builds towards. 
 Catherynne Valente's second tale of September's quests in Fairyland is an enchanting, glimmering little story, which never allows its wry archness to overwhelm its beauty. A truly lovely little book.