It is almost a novella it is so short and mostly sweet about a young boy who loves to be in the woods. The reader sees home through several perspectives. One is his devoted mother, another is a father who just doesn't quite get Lanny, and through Peter, an aging artist who gets Lanny’s buoyant creativity. Now here is the thing. We also watch Lanny from the perspective of Dead Papa Toothwort, an ancient spirit who stirs in the ground and has seen all life in this place. So it is a book that is part real and part make believe, and the narrative sways back and forth between the two, until Lanny goes missing, and then it is all about how the world views that. Lanny is no longer imaginative and inventive. He is missing and up until the time that he is again found, the book seems very much not magical, but then we get returned to the woodland sprite way of thinking.
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