I love children's books and fairytales that speak to the adult heart. I liked the first two stories better, but what I love about this series is how Valente uses Fairyland and a child's voice to reflect on really big thoughts and ideas. One of my favorite examples was the married Lunaticks Marigold and Tamarind who are immortal, but are constantly changing their shape. 
 "Marriage is a wrestling match where you hold on tight while your mate changes into a hundred different things. The trick is that you're changing into a hundred other things, but you can't let go. You can only try to match up and never turn into a wolf while he's a rabbit, or a mouse while he's still busy being an owl, a brawny black bull while he's a little blue crab scuttling for shelter. It's harder than it sounds." 
 Another good one is when September is talking to the Whelk of the Moon who protects and provides for all the citizens of Almanack who live inside her shell: 
 September: "Aren't you afraid they'll use you all up? There's so many people, and only one of you!" 
 Whelk of the Moon: "They are all hungry, too, you know. At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, much more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn't converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food - for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them. Even the mites and the mussels. But no one can use you up unless you let them."