Reviewed by Kim Deister on
This is a story with many themes... guilt, friendship, loss, faith in the unseen, trust, and love. One of my favorite parts of the novel is the relationship between Adam and his grandfather. Like his grandfather, Adam is open to the things that flit about the corners of our vision, the things that most adults have cast aside as fanciful notions of childhood. These are the things that both fascinate him and scare him, the shadows that move in the night, the shadows that move through the trees. The story is embued with old magic, woven through the lives of the characters in so many unexpected ways.
I apprecciate the way the ideas and concepts of old magic are presented in this novel. It isn't the more modern representations of magic that I am used to in young adult and children's fiction, but magic that is older, more nature-based... the magic of faery lore. It doesn't show Disneyfied faeries, but those that are mischievious, even mean. It celebrates the relationships between humantiy and nature and how it can be both bad and good. It is a beautiful story with lessons to be learned.
My Recommendation
This is an almost lyrical tale with both light and dark moments that presents the foundation of magic as it should be... with the good and the bad.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 20 July, 2015: Finished reading
- 20 July, 2015: Reviewed