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captainsblogI may be the only person alive who didn't get to read Kate Danley's first, published novel before devouring her second, unpublished one. (Full disclosure: she "won" me in a charity auction for a full edit of that second book, of which I will say no more until publication, but I have no connection at all to the first). I will say that the one to come has an admirable progeny: it is just as smart, just as funny (funnier, actually) and just as moving as the one you can (and should, dammit) go to Amazon and get a copy of. Now.
Woodcutter is a unique-to-its-author blend of the fairy tales and mythologies of our youth. While they depend mainly on the original stories as handed down by Mothers Geese and Grimms, in my own mind's eye there were more than a few necessary glimpses of the last-century animations of those characters. Mr. Disney and hisMerry Grumpy Nine Old Men are not literally seen anywhere in the text, but their imprints of the characters on our culture are the Dumbo in the room whenever anyone tries tackling the same subject matter. Danley does so with Gusto (he was the eighth dwarf;), and you leave her Kingdoms with a clear understanding that they are hers, and nobody else's.
The title character is just another go-to-work-in-the-morning kinda supernatural creature of sketchy alienage who always winds up having to save humanity from itself, only instead of a TARDIS, he gets an ax. Or is it axe? Doesn't matter, because early on, he turns it into axes, anyway, and he, and they, proceed to travel between blue blood and red, Ordinary and Fae, and up and down the beanstalk in a way that will make clear to you that, in fact, we didn't know Jack.
It's not just the most famed of characters from Magical Central Casting who make it into the story, either. If you're a fan of the darker, gorier, fairy tales your mother didn't tell you (and yes, Kate, it's THAT Kate- and vice versa), you will meet at least one of this inkier ilk in the middle of the story. Yet there is little to keep it even from a straight PG rating in terms of violence or even language (not that Ms. Danley is incapable of throwing a bad word around- see opening remarks about the second book). I would be perfectly okay reading this to my child as a bedroom story, although I probably would recommend leaving the nightlight on and the door open thereafter.
It's not a beach read, because you'll want some time to think. You will also wind up up not spending much time in the water, since you will not want to put the book down. The pages turn quickly, the chapters go even more so at times, and despite a fairly complex infrastructure to this faeryland, I had no trouble keeping track of who was who and, for the most part, who the good and bad guys were. (They do occasionally change. That's allowed, yaknow.)
In the end, you're left with the age-old question of whether they all live happily ever after. While I'll let you figure out that puzzle for yourself, I will say that your own pedestrian life will be at least a little happier, for at least a little while, if you spend a few hours of it curled up with this particular block of cut-up, printed-on Wood.
Woodcutter is a unique-to-its-author blend of the fairy tales and mythologies of our youth. While they depend mainly on the original stories as handed down by Mothers Geese and Grimms, in my own mind's eye there were more than a few necessary glimpses of the last-century animations of those characters. Mr. Disney and his
The title character is just another go-to-work-in-the-morning kinda supernatural creature of sketchy alienage who always winds up having to save humanity from itself, only instead of a TARDIS, he gets an ax. Or is it axe? Doesn't matter, because early on, he turns it into axes, anyway, and he, and they, proceed to travel between blue blood and red, Ordinary and Fae, and up and down the beanstalk in a way that will make clear to you that, in fact, we didn't know Jack.
It's not just the most famed of characters from Magical Central Casting who make it into the story, either. If you're a fan of the darker, gorier, fairy tales your mother didn't tell you (and yes, Kate, it's THAT Kate- and vice versa), you will meet at least one of this inkier ilk in the middle of the story. Yet there is little to keep it even from a straight PG rating in terms of violence or even language (not that Ms. Danley is incapable of throwing a bad word around- see opening remarks about the second book). I would be perfectly okay reading this to my child as a bedroom story, although I probably would recommend leaving the nightlight on and the door open thereafter.
It's not a beach read, because you'll want some time to think. You will also wind up up not spending much time in the water, since you will not want to put the book down. The pages turn quickly, the chapters go even more so at times, and despite a fairly complex infrastructure to this faeryland, I had no trouble keeping track of who was who and, for the most part, who the good and bad guys were. (They do occasionally change. That's allowed, yaknow.)
In the end, you're left with the age-old question of whether they all live happily ever after. While I'll let you figure out that puzzle for yourself, I will say that your own pedestrian life will be at least a little happier, for at least a little while, if you spend a few hours of it curled up with this particular block of cut-up, printed-on Wood.