The Glassblower's Children

Praise

“Gripe polishes each separate scene to fine perfection.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“This is a book to be read and returned to: it touches one deeply before the full pattern of meaning becomes clear, but, when it does, every detail is seen to have its place.” —Lesley Croome, The Times Literary Supplement
 
“Beautiful and terrifying by turns…The Glassblower’s Children is a brave book.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Fifty years ago, Swedish storyteller Maria Gripe set down a curious and somewhat disconcerting fairy tale about a benevolent carpet-weaving witch named Flutter Mildweather; her one-eyed raven companion, who can see only the good in the world; and two small kidnapped children. Reprinted in an elegant edition with original white-on-black etched illustrations…The Glassblower’s Children retains its mystical, allegorical power…. Stirring and distinct, this fable by the 1974 winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award lends itself not just to bedtime reading but also to quiet reflection.”  —Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal
 
“[Gripe’s] stories were often deceptively plaintive. They hid a wealth of darker truths which brewed just beneath the crust of her mannered language…. Gripe employs a striking dynamism that straddles a balance between grim realism and mystical fantasy. Very Swedish in its approach to analyzing human behaviour (think Ingmar Bergman writing children’s stories), The Glassblower’s Children delves deep to examine a kind of existential melancholy in young children.” —Imran Khan, PopMatters