Elf Dog and Owl Head
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the singular imagination of National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson comes a magical adventure about a boy and his dog—or a dog and her boy—and a forest of wonders hidden in plain sight. Clay has had his fill of home life. A global plague has brought the world to a screeching halt, and with little to look forward to but a summer of video-calling friends, vying with annoying sisters for the family computer, and tuning out his parents’ financial worries, he’s only too happy to retreat to the woods. From the moment the elegant little dog with the ornate collar appears like an apparition among the trees, Clay sees something uncanny in her. With this mysterious Elphinore as guide, he’ll glimpse ancient secrets folded all but invisibly into the forest. Each day the dog leads Clay down paths he never knew existed, deeper into the unknown. But they aren’t alone in their surreal adventures. There are traps and terrors in the woods, too, and if Clay isn’t careful, he might stray off the path and lose his way forever. Graced with evocative black-and-white illustrations by Junyi Wu, Elf Dog and Owl Head is heartfelt and exhilarating, wry and poignant, seamlessly merging the fantastic and the familiar in a tale both timely and timeless.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wandering the mystical forest behind his house on Mount Norumbega offers Clay O'Brian an escape from being stuck at home with his family due to a global virus. As Clay attempts to play Frisbee solo in the woods, he encounters an elegant white elf hound with a bejeweled collar who's been separated from a Royal Hunt. Elphinore, as she is called, is part of an "ancient and dangerous crowd" known as the People Under the Mountain—and when she leads him on a path he's never seen, Clay beholds extraordinary alternate realms "in different folds of space." Alongside genteel Amos, an owl-headed boy, he spends the summer exploring such places and anticipating the festivities of Midsummer's Eve. Meanwhile, older sister DiRossi seethes in her room at the unfairness of spending her 14-year-old summer alone, and, deciding to find out what her brother is up to, has adventures of her own, including an encounter with a similarly misanthropic giant. Revisiting the setting of his Norumbegan Quartet and layering the everyday with intriguing lands and creatures, Anderson expertly balances the anguish of pandemic-era isolation with the transporting joys of new friendships. Stylized b&w pencil art from Wu punctuate this wryly told fantasy. Human characters default to white. Ages 8–12. Author's agent: David McCormick Literary. Illustrator's agent: Anne Moore Armstrong, Bright Agency.
