A Wild Winter Swan

May 1, 2020

After Oz, Wonderland, and the swirling worlds of Dickensian London and E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker, Maguire transfigures Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans," here retold as the story of an Italian American girl named Laura living with her starchy grandparents on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the 1960s. As she frets that she will be sent to boarding school after Christmas, a handsome boy with one swan wing appears on her roof. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 10, 2020
Maguire (Wicked) continues his fabulist fairy tale remixes with this enchanting story, which draws inspiration from the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Wild Swans.” In the original, a sister saves her seven brothers from the curse of living as swans by sewing them magical shirts; one brother’s shirt isn’t quite finished, and he ends up with a swan wing instead of an arm. Maguire brings this tale to New York City in 1962, where 15-year-old Laura Ciardi is preparing for an important Christmas Eve dinner in the brownstone where she lives with her Italian immigrant grandparents. Between troubles at school, the looming dread of attending a new boarding school in Canada, the expectations of her grandparents, and worries about her absent mother, Laura doesn’t really have time to deal with the boy who crash lands in her bedroom with one huge swan wing for a left arm. But this new challenge turns out to be exactly what Laura needs to find courage to begin moving forward in her own life. Maguire parallels the swan boy’s story of brokenness to Laura’s own struggles overcoming class and cultural differences. Fans of Maguire’s retellings will love this simple, elegant story. (Oct.)Correction: The publisher listed on a previous version of this review was incorrect.

September 1, 2020
In his newest variation on a classic tale, following his take on the Nutcracker, Hiddensee (2017), Maguire offers a sort-of sequel to Hans Christian Anderson's "The Wild Swans, setting his fairy tale in the 1960s and adding new facets of wonder to New York City at Christmastime. Raised by her stern Italian grandparents, Laura Ciardi is a lonely 15-year-old recently expelled after retaliating against a school bully. Her main company is their cook, the delightful Mary Bernice, and two friendly workmen repairing the family brownstone before a big holiday feast. There, Laura's grandparents hope to entice their rich Irish brother-in-law into investing in their grocery, while Laura wants a guardian angel to rescue her from potential boarding school. Instead, appearing on the roof one stormy night is a dirty, bedraggled young man with a swan's wing for an arm. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue as Laura tries to care for him and build him another wing without anyone noticing. Sensitive depictions of generational and coming-of-age conflicts intertwine with whimsy as Maguire touchingly shows how people invoke stories to help elucidate their complicated world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)