cover image The Time of the Forest

The Time of the Forest

Tom McGowen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $12.95 (110pp) ISBN 978-0-395-44471-9

This love story, set in prehistoric Denmark, opens with an image of a body hung from a treeforeshadowing the violence to come. Wolf, a teenage boy whose people are hunters in the forest, meets Bright Dawn, a girl whose people are farmers and fell the trees. Their tribes are too suspicious of each other to live in peace. Each group wonders if the other, with such dissimilar habits and features, can be truly human. When hostilities flare, the two lovers are forced to flee, hoping to combine their customs and start a new life. Although the plot is somewhat thin and seems faintly contrived in the beginning, it ends convincingly, and the shifting point of view, which reveals much about the characters, is smoothly handled. Wolf and Bright Dawn have a sweetness that translates well to modernand sometimes equally bittertimes. Ages 10-14. (March)