Greenwild

Greenwild: The World Behind the Door (2023) is the first book in the Greenwild series by Pari Thomson, which continues in Greenwild: The City Beyond the Sea (2024). The series as a whole highlights the environmental threats posed by deforestation and unbridled capitalism, and this first installment in the series follows the protagonist, Daisy Thistledown, as she explores the hidden world of the Greenwild and gains a sense of community and belonging. Within the community of Mallowmarsh, she learns about her own magical heritage and works to find out more about her mother’s mysterious disappearance. The novel is structured as an eco-fantasy that examines themes such as Children’s Ability to Enact Change, The Value of Having a Home, and The Innate Magic of the Natural World..

Thomson is a Persian English writer who works as an editorial director for picture books at Bloomsbury Children’s Books. Greenwild: The World Behind the Door is her debut novel. The series is illustrated by Elisa Paganelli, an Italian English illustrator who specializes in children’s books.

This guide uses the Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Books for Young Readers 2023 eBook edition.

Content Warning: Both the source material and this guide feature depictions of animal and human death, emotional abuse, racism, and discrimination based on immigration status.

Plot Summary

When 11-year-old Daisy Thistledown, who is of English and Iranian descent, sees her mother, Leila, conjure white orchids during a sandstorm, Leila claims that Daisy is only imagining things. Six months later, Daisy and Leila meet with Leila’s editor, Mr. Craven. Leila, who usually takes Daisy with her on her research trips, says that Daisy will have to go to Wykhurst Boarding School while Leila takes a dangerous trip to the Amazon. She gives Daisy a paperweight and cautions her to keep it a secret. (Daisy later learns that the paperweight is really a “dandelight,” a magical object that allows anyone to travel through to the secret world of the Greenwild.) Leila also cryptically tells Daisy that if she needs help, she can bring the dandelight to Kew Gardens in London, and help will appear.

At Wykhurst Boarding School, Daisy is ignored by her peers and bullied by the Matron Daggler, who terrorizes her with racist and xenophobic comments. When a stray cat sneaks into Daisy’s luggage, Daisy befriends him and names him Napoleon, and he becomes her one true companion at the largely hostile boarding school.

At the end of the term, Leila does not return for her daughter at the scheduled time, and Matron reports that Leila has disappeared in the Amazon and is presumed dead. When Daisy overhears Matron talking about abducting her, she flees the school. Upon traveling to London, she comes across Mr. Craven and realizes that he is holding Leila’s daisy necklace. Intuiting that he is involved in Leila’s disappearance, Daisy steals the necklace and flees to Kew Gardens. The dandelight leads her through a hidden door to Mallowmarsh, a garden city in a magical parallel world known as the Greenwild.

In Mallowmarsh, Daisy meets Commander Artemis White, whom she will eventually learns is her paternal grandmother. Artemis explains that the Greenwild is a place of plant-based magic and that the people who live there are called Botanists. Artemis sees Leila’s necklace as a sign that Leila and Daisy are both Botanists. She explains that many Botanists have gone missing in the Amazon recently. Daisy also meets and befriends Botanist children named Indigo Podsnap, Acorn Sparkler, and Eggbertina “the Prof” Bellamy.

Although Daisy marvels at the wonders of Mallowmarsh, she is disheartened by the xenophobic comments of Artemis’s deputy commander, Ferrus Sheldrake (whom she later learns is Artemis’s ex-husband and her paternal grandfather). As time goes on, Daisy and her friends scheme together to learn about the mysterious disappearance of Leila and other Botanists in the Amazon.

In the daytime, Daisy attends the Mallowmarsh school, where she struggles with her inability to access green magic. While wandering at night, she finds a secret garden and meets a boy named Hal. She begins visiting him nightly to help repair the secret garden. When she misses meeting him one evening, she learns that time moves differently in the garden than in Mallowmarsh; Hal’s timeline occurred 30 years ago. In Artemis’s house, she finds a 30-year-old journal that belonged to Hal as a child. She learns that Hal was Artemis’s son and was killed by his best friend, Cardew, who was stripped of his magic and banished from the Greenwild in punishment for murdering Hal and several other Botanists. (Cardew has since renamed himself Craven and resides in the Grayside.)

One evening, Daisy sees Sheldrake sneaking around. He catches her and confiscates her dandelight. Later, Daisy and her friends sneak into the “Perilous Glasshouse,” a greenhouse full of dangerous plants, to rescue the dandelight. While they are there, someone attacks a guard and steals a “ghost orchid” (a flower that can restore life to someone by stealing an amount of time from the person the recipient loves best). Sheldrake believes that Daisy is the one who has stolen the ghost orchid, but Artemis defends her.

Daisy and her friends realize that Craven wants the dandelight because it will allow him to return to the Greenwild, where he can exact revenge on those who banished him. Artemis reports that the Bureau that leads the Greenwild has denied the request to search for the missing Botanists. The children attribute this decision to corruption, and their interpretation is supported by the fact that the Heart Oak, which represents the Greenwild’s magic, is sickening. The children develop a plan to use magic seeds to shrink themselves so that they can fly to London on a parakeet and steal Craven’s map of Peru, which reveals the location of Leila and the other hostages. They secure the map, and upon seeing this evidence, Artemis and the Mallowmarsh people vote to mount a search-and-rescue operation for the missing Botanists.

The children intercept a message between Sheldrake and “M.D.” (whom they later learn is Matron Daggler), who plan to meet at the Moonmarket, a monthly magical market.

One day, someone releases giant slugs in the gardens and uses the diversion to steal the dandelight. (The culprit is later revealed to be Brightly Marigold, whose son has been kidnapped by Craven.) The children follow Sheldrake to the Moonmarket, where Brightly Marigold betrays them and kidnaps Daisy and Acorn. Daisy’s intense need to escape helps her to finally access her green magic and save herself and her friends.

They escape to Mallowmarsh and discover Craven, who has used the stolen dandelight to pass into the Greenwild in order to destroy the garden with fire. Craven’s allies chop down the Heart Oak, which fells Artemis, but Napoleon and Daisy’s magic restore Artemis and the tree to life. Craven tells Daisy that Leila is dead. Daisy uses her magic to collapse the largest greenhouse in Mallowmarsh while she and Craven stand atop it. Daisy lands safely, but Craven falls to his death.

After Daisy recovers from using so much magic, Artemis explains that the Mallowmarsh residents have defeated Craven’s allies. Brightly Marigold, who used the stolen ghost orchid to donate all her remaining life to her ailing son, has died in the battle.

Artemis also explains that Hal was her son; he left Mallowmarsh years ago after Sheldrake, his father, was cruel to him. Later, at a community celebration, Daisy receives a letter suggesting that Leila is still alive.