Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Dirk doesn't know where he came from. His first memories are of living with an old woman and man deep in the forest, away from the rest of humanity. When he becomes one mouth too many to feed, the old man takes him into the woods, intending to abandon him. Fate and the forest intervene, however, and Dirk narrowly escapes. A mysterious figure in the wider world, Dirk forges his way with odd jobs, weaving stories for the few friends he makes, chased by tragedy and darkness. Later in life, Dirk settles down and opens a toy store in the city. His carved wooden toys are in high demand, but only Klara, the ailing granddaughter of his one true friend, understands the magic in them. It is her magical journey on a snowy Christmas Eve that brings them to life, saving hers just as Dirk's own is dimming. Maguire's characteristic tone is dark and enchanting in his newest fairy tale revision, following After Alice (2015). Into this origin story of the mysterious gift-giving Godfather in The Nutcracker he has woven many traditional Germanic tales and a few Hellenistic myths, as well, to create a powerful story of hope and redemption sure to delight his fans.--Ophoff, Cortney Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
The author of Wicked and After Alice has written an origin fairy tale for toymaker Drosselmeier and the famous Nutcracker he creates, the protagonists of an E.T.A. Hoffman story that was later transformed into Tchaikovsky's famous ballet. The novel begins with Drosselmeier's beginnings as a young foundling, living in the forest with an old couple. A fateful trip to fell a tree sets the boy on a winding path with a magical knife. He finds shelter and work along the way and eventually begins a long friendship and possibly something more with Felix Stahlbaum, grandfather of Fritz and Marie-Claire, commonly known as Klara, and the recipient of the magical Nutcracker. VERDICT Maguire combines the Greek myth of Pan and Pythia with the dark undertones of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, resulting in a strangely fascinating reimagining of how the Nutcracker came to be. Lovers of classical retellings and the author's other books will admire. [See Prepub Alert, 4/10/17.] © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A delightful, mystical, mythical confection by zeitgeist whisperer Maguire (After Alice, 2015, etc.), who likes nothing more than to work at the dark edges of a fairy tale. As evidenced especially in Wicked and its sequels, Maguire has a sharp appreciation for what struck Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm way back when: especially if they're German, the stories we tell our children are marvels of mayhem, compressed slices of violence and bleakness gussied up with an occasional shiny poisoned apple. In them, death is always present. So it is with this latest foray, in which Maguire locates a perhaps unwilling hero in a young foundling, Dirk Drosselmeier, who, having courted death himself, proves to be inept enough with an ax at his adopted woodcutter father's house to be packed off into the worldnarrowly avoiding death, it seems, at the hands of the old man and his wicked-witchish wife. "He's witnessed enough to be scared already, I can't make it worse," she cackles, and off he goes. But the world has plenty of terrors of its own to offer, including the fact that everyone he loves will die or otherwise leave him. He learns to live on his own wits and resources; "I'm more like a spider," he says, "I cling with strings and hooks only to every passing day." Improbably, in the face of all that sorrow and odd encounters with the likes of the quack Doctor Mesmer, he makes good; he wasn't so handy with a hatchet, but with smaller blades he carves out a formidable nutcracker that evolves, in his hands, "from it to he." Shades of Pinocchio! It's at this juncture that, as if a mist lifting, the darkness of the story brightens and, magically, the familiar story that we know from Tchaikovsky's Christmas classic, Klara and the King of Mice and all, resolves with brilliant clarity. It's a fine bit of sorcery on Maguire's part, but of course, as all things must, it ends darkly. A splendid revisitation of folklore that takes us to and from familiar cultural touchstones into realms to make Freud blanch. Wonderful. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
