You know you have a problem when you spend five days of the week at your job behind the scenes at a bookstore, then on Saturday you go to the library for a “change of scenery.” But I guess it could be worse.
Anyway, I was browsing the shelves, thinking that I had forgotten it was the day before Easter and there would be little rabbits hunting eggs and goodies, but thankfully they were outside. I was able to just look and see what jumped out at me. Well, considering the theme of the book it was amusing that Bog Myrtle by Sid Sharp was one of those books. I had planned on taking it home, and reading as many picture books as I could there, but something said to go to another room and sit and read.
This book is by the author of The Wolf Suit. I don’t remember loving it, but I thought it was good in its own unique way. Both titles have an audience that is probably a bit sophisticated, a bit quirky and has a bit of dark humor. But with Bog Myrtle I enjoyed it more than The Wolf Suit.
I was going to browse it but got caught up in the whirlwind of it. I came awaking thinking “What an odd, not so little, little book.” It is amusing. It is a little scary. It is straight forward. It reminds me of a slightly darker The Lorax (movie) in some ways. It is a fairy tale meets cautionary tale. There is a lot going on. Has a European non-American feeling to the overall tone of things
The idea is simple, two sisters (one good, one not) live together. One day the not good sister is complaining she’s cold, the good sister says she’ll knit a sweater, with what the mean one asks. With the treasures of the forest is the reply. (Okay, I’m picking up what you’re putting down.) Then comes the treasure. A stone, a shell of a beetle, a limb of a tree. Yeah, not going to fly. But here is the twist, after not being able to buy yarn with her treasure the sister goes back to the forest and returns the items. This is where things go from “been there, read that, didn’t get a sweater,” to things that are new, fresh, amusing and maybe a little more than a little dark.
With that said, I would actually read this book again and now go back to The World Suit to see what I missed with it.
