This is the strangest book I read this year and I know I’ll be thinking of it for a long time. It is, on the surface, the story of a found family who makes a seasonal migration to the forest in summer in order to live in harmony with nature. But, just as the forest teems with life, this title teems with aspects of other genres - fairytales, parables, and natural history to name a few. I didn’t like the violent treatment of some of the forest creatures, but a fun fantasy to get lost in just the same.

This is a lovely book, truly.

The translation is, to my monolingual knowledge, wonderful. I really appreciated the forward, and I love the footnotes. The translation very much seemed a labor of love.

However, there’s one portion in the foreword where “I don’t know the LBTQ terminology well enough to know how to describe her, but I gather from reading her book of memoirs ….. that she was the ‘feminine type,’ as in ‘girls in dresses and frills’.” The word the translator might be unable to confidently say (for he does not know her) is “femme”, widely used in many queer circles. While I do not expect one translator on another continent to know general queer terms, it feels offputting that this might not have been researched, or fact-checked with any queer people the translator may have known, or asking various online others who live in other countries. Even if there was a different term in Polish for femmes, it would have been nice to see that mentioned there.

While I was able to read some of the book, the uncertainly lingered— if this was not researched, what further queer subjects or implications were inadvertently shifted? I’m certain Tom Pinch truly attempted his best, and certainly did research, but this previous mention with uncertainty for a common queer term lingered in every sentence. This is a DNF, though I hope to return to it.

(edit, for anyone else who may be looking: I have been in contact with Mr. Pinch, and the introduction is being changed. I have more confidence in him than my previous review might have replied. I will be returning it, when I can find a break in my reading schedule to settle back in! I hope to re-edit this once I return and complete the book.)

Irresistibly charming.

There's something of The Wind in the Willows, something of The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, something of Swallows and Amazons, and something uniquely its own as well.

I can quite see how this has become such a classic, and the 'lesbian twist' - however well-hidden in the actual reading - is really icing on the cake. How I like to imagine these women living in rural Communist Poland, giving each other honorary names like 'Beekeeper' and 'Crane', becoming one with the forest!

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC - and to the translator for his 'labour of love'.