I have very little to say about this book because it speaks for itself so beautifully. It is my absolute favorite book and has been since I stumbled on it in a used bookstore as a young teen. (The snippets of the movie I had somehow seen pieces of terrified and confused me as a young child, but I got over that with time. Beagle himself wrote the screenplay, and the studio who made it later later split and became Studio Ghibli, all of which is very cool.) I loved reading it to the boys and they each have a signed first edition that the absolutely lovely Peter Beagle inscribed to them (for more on that encounter, see my entry on The Sneetches and Other Stories).
I’m not alone in loving this book; over and over again I’ve seen authors pay tribute to it. For example, Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher), another especial favorite of mine (and of the boys), notes:
It is made of spun glass and fairytales and iron knives and there are individual lines that I would give my lungs to have written.
She’s right. I mean, my goodness, just look at the first page below.
Author: Peter S. Beagle
Illustrator: N/A
