Teen Fiction

The Witch's Boy

Name: The Witch's Boy
Author: Michael Gruber
ISBN: 9780786285808

by Michael Gruber

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Overview

A wondrous journey through the realms of magic

They call him Lump. Ugly, misshapen — more goblin than human child — abandoned as an infant and taken in by a witch, he is nursed by a bear, tutored by a djinn; his only playmates are the creatures of the forest, whose language he learns to speak.

But when Lump inevitably stumbles into the human world, his innocence is no match for the depths of people's cruelty, which turns his heart to stone, and fuels a vengeance that places him and his witch mother in deadly peril. Yet these disasters also send Lump on a journey of self-discovery, to realms deep within the earth and far beyond mortal imagination.

In this stunning fantasy debut, Michael Gruber has created a world that is at once deceptively familiar and stunningly original, a world of cruelty, beauty, legend, truth, and above all, wonder. Readers will delight in the author's ingenious retelling of classic fairy tales and will marvel at the stunning new tale of a boy raised by a witch, a cat, a bear, and a demon.

A grotesque foundling turns against the witch who sacrificed almost everything to raise him when he becomes consumed by the desire for money and revenge against those who have hurt him, but he eventually finds his true heart's desire.

About the Author, Michael Gruber

New York Times bestselling author Michael Gruber is the author of five acclaimed novels. He lives in Seattle.

Biography

Michael Gruber, in his own words:

I was born and raised in New York City, and educated in its public schools. I went to Columbia, earning a B.A. in English literature. After college I did editorial work at various small magazines in New York, and then went back to school at City College and got the equivalent of a second B.A., in biology.

After that I went to the University of Miami and got an M.A. in marine biology. In 1968-69, I was in the Army as a medic.

In 1973, I received my Ph.D. marine sciences, for a study of octopus behavior. Then I was a chef at several Miami restaurants. Then I was a hippie traveling around in a bus and working as a roadie for various rock groups. Then I worked for the county manager of Metropolitan Dade County, as an analyst. Then I was director of planning for the county department of human resources.

I went to Washington, D.C., in 1977, and worked in the Carter White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy. Then I worked in the Environmental Protection Agency as a policy analyst and also as the speechwriter for the administrator. I started writing freelance at that time, and shortly after being promoted to the Senior Executive Service of the U.S., I left Washington and settled in Seattle. I worked for a while for the state land commissioner, but since 1988 I have been a full-time writer.

I am married, with three grown children and an extremely large dog.

Good To Know

Some interesting anecdotes from our interview with Gruber:

"My first job was writing copy for Classics Comics, which was the best job I ever had. Reducing Tolstoy to thought balloons!"

"I did my Ph.D. on the relation between moray eels and octopuses. As a result of this work, I am one of the few people who have been bitten by both a moray eel and an octopus. Being bitten by a moray is much like catching your finger in a car door. Being bitten by an octopus is like being snakebit. Your arm swells up and turns black."

"I was once a member of a traveling commune called the Hog Farm. I was the cook on one of the buses. My roadkill dumplings were famous throughout the mobile counterculture. I once made eggs Benedict for 14 hippies on the banks of the Rio Grande. Aside from that my life has been fairly dull and no fun at all."

"I have no hobbies. The only thing I do with my time is reading, writing, and research. I walk my dog. I occasionally dig in the garden, but we have a gardener and this tends to upset her. I never unwind, except I get drunk with a bunch of journalists every Friday. Every Wednesday I teach snippets of Catholic theology to people who wish to join the Church."

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Editorials

KLIATT

To quote from the review of the audiobook in KLIATT, November 2005: The witch never knew she wanted a child until he appeared: an infant, ugly and misshapen, abandoned in the woods. And thus Lump was named. His nurse was a bear, his teacher a djinn. Unfortunately, he is not bear nor djinn nor witch and mixing with the human world proves disastrous. Lump blames his mother for all his woes. However, there comes a time when each person must ultimately make his own way. For Lump that way comes with great cost, but ultimately with great redemption. Gruber is incredibly clever, turning familiar fairy tales inside out with simple changes in point of view. (The witch, in her girlhood, wore a little red riding cloak and contrary to popular rendition, the wolf is the savior of the story.) KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2005, HarperTempest, 377p., Ages 12 to 18.
—Jodi L. Israel

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-"Once upon a time, in a faraway country, there was a woman who lived by herself in the middle of a great forest." Thus begins this literary fairy tale of a witch who takes into her home an ugly, abandoned infant whom she calls Lump. Wise in the ways of magic, the witch is inexpert in the ways of motherhood and so she appoints, in turn, a bear as his nursemaid and a djinni as his tutor. As predicted by her cat familiar, all does not go well and the witch is forced to give up her magic to save the boy. The adolescent Lump, far from being grateful for her sacrifice, becomes increasingly troublesome. Gruber incorporates well-known tales such as "Little Red Riding Hood," "Hansel and Gretel," and "Rumplestiltskin" into his narrative, giving readers a different, and sometimes more frightening, take on these childhood staples. The inclusion of these retellings and the elegance with which the author shapes his fable will appeal to readers who love to immerse themselves in the complex reworked fairy tales of Donna Jo Napoli. This is not a quick read, but it is an engrossing and enormously satisfying one.-Sharon Grover, Arlington County Department of Libraries, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Threading recognizable but artfully altered fairy tales throughout, Gruber crafts a hefty bildungsroman that takes an ugly foundling child from dour innocence through an utterly hellish adolescence to joyful maturity. Discovered abandoned in the fork of a tree by the Queen of Air and Darkness herself, Lump grows up alone, in the care of a kindly, dimwitted she-bear assigned to be his nanny by the well-intentioned but very busy and distracted sorceress. He turns out to be a most disagreeable child, spoiled, selfish, quick to anger, as pigheaded as he is pig-featured, and with a cold, closed heart that refuses to acknowledge or return any kindness-even after his foster mother sacrifices nearly all of her powers in payment for his misdeeds. After several wild reversals of fortune, capped by a disastrous infatuation with a certain miller's beautiful but empty-headed daughter, the scales do fall from Lump's eyes at last, allowing him to mend fences with his patient mother, and to find real love with Bluebeard's blind daughter. One of the least sympathetic characters readers will ever meet in literature, Lump is going to make many a teen, preteen or for that matter, parent uncomfortable-and there's plenty of grist for fans of Donna Jo Napoli's fairy tale psychodramas, too. (Fantasy. 12+)