Climbing, forever trying/Find your way out of the wild, wild wood.*

As a fairly dedicated Cannonballer, I am embarrassed that it took me so long to read Uprooted.

After Hillary M, yesknopemaybe, narfna, alwaysanswerb, Quorren, Caitlin, crystalclear, Malin, and ElCicco all gave this book either 4 or 5 stars, I should have downloaded without hesitation, or gone out to the bookstore and bought it. But I didn’t. I waited around for my library to finally get it, and put my name on the list. And I forgot about it.

And then it was my turn. And the librarian said to me, “hey, that looks interesting. What’s it about?” And because I am an idiot, I just said, “I’m not really sure, but I heard it was good. Maybe some sort of fairy tale?”

When what I should have told him was, “Yes, this is a fairly tale. But also? This is the greatest folk tale I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. This is a heartbreaking love story. This is a book about the power of friendship. This book is scary, and funny, and I wish it had gone on forever.”

I brought it home and opened it up.

And I came up for air 100 pages later, only because I had to pick my kids up from the bus stop. I read it while getting Thanksgiving dinner ready. I read it at the gym. I immersed myself in this story.

I don’t want to say too much about this book, other than that it is a nearly perfect specimen of writing. The words, the language, the story, and the characters are vibrant and alive.

*I kept listening to this song while I was reading this. I thought it was somewhat appropriate.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcaCwKvMyfs&w=420&h=315]