One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.
I’ve had The Old Counrty by Mordicai Gerstein for a really long time. I bought it on a trip to Vermont.
When Gisella’s brother goes off to war, she decides to hunt and kill the fox that has been stealing the family’s chicken. She never expected to end up becoming a fox herself!
I really did not like this book. I had tried to pick this up several times in the long history that I have had it. Reading it now, I know why I DNFd it in the past. Although the intention of making this book read like a fairy tale or fable is a neat idea, I felt everything about this book was overly heavy handed and obvious. The aspect of war was uninteresting to me, and the lessons were over stated and also clunky. I found at times the writing seemed childish and talking down to the reader, but at other times too adult with themes that felt way over the intended readers head. Some of the concepts were interesting, like a fox stealing your body, a court of animals putting you on trial, etc… A main idea was everyone and everything having it’s own nature and whether one can learn to change that nature. The book never fully decides, so the reader must. While writing this review I found that the part that I remembered most fondly was the ending which was a surprise to me. I wouldn’t recommend this book, but I wouldn’t say for sure don’t read it either. I would suggest that as an adult you read this before giving it to a child to read.
Have you read this book? What were you thoughts?
This book was featured in my October Wrap Up.