Review by Sylvie Weissman
Gregory Maguire’s The Wild Winter Swan is a miraculous little book. It’s Manhattan in the 1960s, and teenaged Laura Ciardi – mostly orphaned and living with her grandparents – has taken to translating the mundane details of her life into narrative in an attempt to prove to herself that she exists. And then a miracle happens, in the form of a boy with one giant wing appearing on her roof, and Laura’s life suddenly isn’t so mundane anymore. Maguire sketches Laura with such honesty and empathy it’s impossible not to get sucked into her world, all of the subtle beauty and the hardships of it. The Wild Winter Swan is full of potent holiday magic – it’ll make you long for those sparkling, snow-covered days.
