The Old Country by Mordecai Gerstein

Gisella lives in the Old Country, where “every winter lasts one hundred years, and every spring is a miracle.” In one tumultuous day, her brother Tavido is drafted into the army on the eve of war, even though they are Crags, a despised ethnic group. When she goes into the forest to hunt the fox that has been stealing her family’s chickens, she makes the mistake of looking into the eyes of the fox, and finds herself in the body of the fox, and the fox in control of her own body. When she makes it back to her farm, she finds that the war has come to her farm, and everyone is missing. Accompanied by the family cat, a chicken named April, and the sprite Quick, Gisella sets off on a cross-country adventure to find her brother, her family, and her own body.

The Old Countryreads like a folktale. With an evocative prose, Mordicai Gerstein takes us to a pseudo-Eur... Read More