TL;DR Review: The cozy flavor of Beatrix Potter’s animal tales, but taken to new prosaic heights of wonder by the addition of magic and color.
Synopsis:
In Claude Moreau’s Garden, magic blooms between dewdrops and dreams, where scholarly mice debate proper tea service in a library housed within an ancient teapot, and frost spirits dance with morning glories to ring in each dawn. Here, memories can be bottled like preserves, stories sometimes edit themselves when no one is looking, and a particularly opinionated patch of mushrooms insists on providing philosophical commentary about cheese. It’s a place where the most ordinary moments contain extraordinary wonders, and where even the spaces between heartbeats hold their own kind of magic.
In this newly discovered collection of tales, hastily penned to his friend Henri-Jules Favreau and only recently unearthed in a Marseilles safe deposit box, Moreau captures remarkable events in his grandmother’s enchanted garden. From a clockwork assistant discovering how to dream, to young mice learning to weave spider-silk into wings, to the grand autumn performance that drew an audience of dragons and dryads, these stories shine with immediacy and wonder. Together, they offer a glimpse into a world where mechanical songbirds learn to compose their own melodies, where librarians help books find their proper dreams, and where the truest magic lies not in grand gestures but in the gentle art of paying attention to small wonders.
Full Review:
I grew up reading the cozy adventures of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, and all the other lovely characters that make Beatrix Potter one of the greatest writers of her era. There was always something so heart-warming and kind about her stories.
Now, take that flavor of story, and add in magic—magic where eyeglasses can be made with dewdrops, where clockwork creatures can come to life, and where stories are a force for change, for growth, and for life. Put that together, and you’ve got A Clockwork’s Dreaming!
Scott Oden has found a wonderful sort of magic in these stories, stories about stories and the power they hold. Every minute spent in his little magical garden is like some kind of fairytale dream, filled with talking mice and messenger bluebirds and maples that headline a grand theatrical show for all the creatures of the forest.
There is no “adventure” to these stories because there are no villains, no enemies to defeat. They are simply wonderings and wanderings through the realm of story, of growth, of humanity, and of the everyday magic found all around us. A small, cozy, yet far from simple exploration of what it means to be alive and find wonder in life.
The stories are short but so sweet, each with an excellent message that reflects on the best of humanity through the eyes and ears of the talking animals who make an appearance.
In a world of bloody action and high-stakes drama, it’s a slow, thoughtful pondering on the small things that make for such a great life. Highly worth the read!
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