The Ship of Stolen Words

Written by Fran Wilde

Narrated by Christopher Gebauer

On the last morning of fifth grade, Sam Culver loses his favorite word. Then, right after that, two more words disappear …

No matter how much trouble Sam gets in, he knows that he can always rely on his magic word, “sorry,” to get him out of a pinch. Teasing his little sister too much? “Sorry!” Hurt someone’s feelings in class? “Sorry!” But when a group of
goblins comes and steals his “sorry,” he’s in more trouble than ever.

To get his word back, Sam chases the goblins through a portal. On the other side, he meets Tolver, a young goblin who’s always dreamed of adventure. Tolver wants to cast off the goblins’ old ways and explore the world, but his grandma
warns him of the untrustworthy goblin prospectors who rule the skies with their fancy technology.

When Sam and Tolver are captured by prospectors, they’ll have to work together to find the depository of stolen words and outsmart their captors—and do it all before Sam’s parents ground him forever!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705036686

Fran Wilde

Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, four Hugo Awards, three Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton Crook Award-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula award-winning, Best of NPR 2019, debut Middle Grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years' best anthologies. Fran teaches for the Genre Fiction MFA concentration at Western Colorado University and the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She also writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Tor.com. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and at franwilde.net.

Reviews for The Ship of Stolen Words

[glennis.leblanc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a fun fantasy middle grade book that has fun and also reminds kids about the power of words. Goblins come over to our side of the world and steal words that the speaker has said without any true feeling behind them. Sam has found that “sorry” is a great word to get him out of trouble and make things easier. When an goblin and his grandmother cross into our world to take those words to power their magic, Sam finds that life is very tough without it. To make matters worse the young goblin also takes “regret” and “apologize”. Sam finds out just how hard it is when he can no longer apologize to his friend about something he said to upset her on the last day. And now he must find a way to get his words back and make things right with his friend.

The magic world of the goblins was interesting and some readers may want to see more of how life is for them and how they go about using thoughtless words to fuel their magic. There is some technology innovations on that side that are causing issues for them and I could see more books set in this world.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fantasy book that's a chore to complete? Nope. This book just never has enough steam to move past a slow wallow of things keep getting worse until they don't.