The blurb gave this a little more of a "Cinderella"  vibe (girl locked in the attic by her evil step-mother, talking to mice) then there actually was. I mean it did have a fairy tale/fantasy feel, with ghosts ;) 

I hadn't heard anything about this book, it was a random find at a thrift store (picking up books for the Little Free Library). Checking Goodreads, I saw several GR friends had read and loved it. I figured I'd give it a read (and I had my #middlegradeMay2025 going on) myself. I was able to borrow the audio and Kindle copy from the library (I like all formats!). 

I went primarily with audio - narrated by Jim Dale (of Harry Potter fame). All 3rd person, as we/the reader get an omniscient view as the POV changes from Liesl, Will (the alchemist's apprentice), Mo (the Lady Premiere's guard) and some secondary characters (Mr. Gray, The Lady Premiere, Augusta Hortense Varice-Morbower).  Augusta's voice always threw me a bit ... sounded too much like a man ;)

The narration was top notch, but there are lovely illustrations in the text editions that are definitely worth looking at (even if I did so after the fact). 

Three PARTS with continuing chapters (31 of them) throughout ... the parts had headers ...
1. Attics & Accidents
2. Narrow Escapes & Excitable Sparrows
3. Reversals & Reunions

I like that these headers all have a THIS & THAT paralleling the title, and there was a connecting image there are the start of each chapter in each part (the box in part 1, baby sparrows in part 2, a tree in part 3). 

... ineffable  :)

There was this little inclusion too, right at the end, sudden shift to 1st/2nd person (the author? talking to the reader?) ...
*** (And this, really, is the story-within-the-story, because if you do not believe that hearts can bloom suddenly bigger, and that love can open like a flower out of even the hardest places, then I am afraid that for you the road will be long and brown and barren, and you will have trouble finding the light. But if you do believe, then you already know all about magic.)

It was fun to follow the connections between characters and situations. I don't know that I really got so pulled in that I was emotionally involved, but I enjoyed it.   The author's note (included in the text copies) was interesting, just a little behind the scenes of the story and how it related to her own life.