Children in Reindeer Woods
"[A] daringly droll, wholly perturbing book."--New York Times
Eleven-year-old Billie lives at a temporary home for children called Children in Reindeer Woods, which she discovers one afternoon, to her surprise, is in the middle of a war zone. When a small group of paratroopers kill everyone who lives there with her, and then turn on each other, Billie is forced to learn to live with the violent, innocent, and troubled Rafael, who decides to abandon the soldier's life and become a farmer, no matter what it takes.
A lyrical and continually surprising take on the absurdity of war and the mysteries of childhood, Children in Reindeer Woods is a moving modern fable.
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Kristín Ómarsdóttir has published books of poetry, short stories, and novels. She received Griíman, the Icelandic playwright award, in 2005 for her play Tell Me Everything.
Lytton Smith is a poet and translator, and a founding member of Blind Tiger Poetry. His book, The All-Purpose Magical Tent was published by Nightboat. His poems and reviews have appeared in such publications as The Atlantic, The Believer, and Boston Review.
Children In Reindeer Woods, Kristín Ómarsdóttir's first novel to be translated from Icelandic into English, remains unsettling to the very end. . . . The eventual payoff is profound and rewarding.--World Literature Today
An assured introduction to her work. . . . Ómarsdóttir's skills as a poet and playwright are particularly evident in the deranged and strangely affecting soap-opera dialogue Billie invents for her dolls, Sara and Ragga.--Helen Oyeyemi, New York Times
Without a doubt, Children in Reindeer Woods is Kristín Ómarsdóttir's best novel to date, and that's saying a lot. . . . Her gifts come fully into their own in a story, also a polemic against war, handled with mastery.--Hrund Ólafsdóttir
The novel is often hilarious--but the undercurrent is heavy. . . . A complicated and fragile world where playing with Barbie dolls and guns go side by side.--Erna Erlingsdóttir, TMM
A literary allegory filled with truths and absurdities about the human condition.--Kirkus Reviews
Children in Reindeer Woods is a modernist page-turner with a bizarre but compelling plot.--Lisa Sanders, Belletrista
Children in Reindeer Woods is sharp, spare, and edgy with tension. Ómarsdóttir shows an incredible skill for translating the intentions behind questionable actions; this book will surely pull readers out of their comfort zone into an active quest for what is real.--Rain Taxi
When we read great, timeless literature (which is what I'm sure this novel will turn out to be), works that disturb as they soothe, offer hope as they crush it--we too, like Billie, are 'getting practice in contradictions.'--The Rumpus
