"Children in Reindeer Woods" by Kristin Omarsdottir ****

• Open Letter Translation
• Icelandic author
• Originally published 2012
• Setting:  An isolated valley in a country at war
• Characters:  Rafael (paratrooper, tired of war, wants to be a farmer, but has a little problem stopping himself from killing), Billie (11 year old girl, only person spared from shooting death at a children's home by Rafael), Abraham (Billie's father, believes he is a puppet whose strings are held by hands from another planet, writing a book of laws to send to the other planet)
• Vocabulary:
• orgulous: haughty
• Quotes:
• p.43....."365 days is an acceptable length of time for a lover yto wait, but once the earth returns to the same place it was when the waiting began, it's over, the waiting ends."
• p.69...."...a theater of the absurd, a summerhouse of loneliness."......great description of the novel
• p.70..."The problem with war is that one doesn't know what to do with the children."
• p.78..."Each person should thread her own crow-path." 
• p.127....."She was getting practice in contradictions."....single killing is murder...millions is was
• p.132..."Each person has to go and thread her own crow-path.  Giving is another way of loving.  The heart fills the sail with air.  The number of fatalities is unknow.  Justice is a goddess.  If you want something you can achieve it.  Soon better times will come, there'll be flowers in the meadow.  The well of wisdom never runs dry.  I am alone but I am not lonely.  I must stop wearing a mask."....Phrases Rafael repeated to himself when he got headaches after killing.
• p.135...."Rafael scattered manure and assorted tinctures over the bed in a struggle against weeds.  He called this "depression medication for vegetable0-growing," since, he explained, "depression is like weeds around the spirit."
• How many men need to be killed for it to be murder?
• Review:   This modern day fable has a dramatic, frightening opening and is then followed by a strange tale of a soldier who is tired of war, and an 11 year old girl who is wise beyond her years yet still a child, and how they help one another.  It is a disturbing and thought provoking story by an Icelandic author whose work I haven't read before.  I will be looking for more!