THE SONG OF ORPHAN'S GARDEN

Lyriana and her 6-year-old brother, Zave, set off through a blighted winter wilderness in search of a magically sheltered garden that calls to orphans.

Hewitt slips occasional rhyming lyrics and haiku into a free verse tale that’s shot through with DNA from Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant. In a land that seems to be permanently gripped by bitter Winter Spirits, cold-hating giants jealously guard the other Seasons within walled gardens that only their specially talented Greensgrowers can create. The gardens must be sustained by infusions of musical magic called Fermata, which only human Songsummoners can conjure. That giants and rebellious humans have been at war for many years complicates matters—particularly for Greensgrower Brobdingnag (Wilde isn’t the only literary influence here) Jonrog, who returns to an isolated garden he created years ago, only to find it taken over by orphaned tinies. He angrily drives them out, but they soon sneak back in, and what Brob sees transforms his feelings: “In every tree, a child, / and with each child // Spring blooms.” Ongoing contact with two new arrivals, frail Zave and his loving big sister, Lyriana, deepens that change of heart on the way to heartrending sacrifice and a joyous renewal that signals a change of season in both the characters’ relationships and the world at large. Lyriana and Zane are cued white; references to skin color cue diversity in the supporting cast.

Lyrical in both themes and language, with resonances both literary and ecological.