Where the Woods End

Where the Woods End is a strange and scary story about facing fears. That’s why it’s scary! A brave girl named Kestrel lives in an endless forest full of monsters with her best friend, Finn, and her weasel, Pippit. All she wants to do is escape the forest, but no matter what she does, she can’t find the way out. Over time, people grabbers come after them. Kestrel does her best to kill grabbers, but she doesn’t know that every time she kills one, two more are born. She spends her life defending the village from grabbers and fighting monsters, but no one likes her because her mother is magic and collects people’s teeth for her weave. Everyone is afraid of Kestrel’s mother because with a single pinch she can hurt someone. One day, her father’s grabber kills him; he tells her to go to a place called Marrow Orchard to get a blood berry to feed to her mother to destroy her magic. Later Kestrel finds her “mother” with a box of bones and realizes that a monster called a face painter replaced her real mother. Kestrel defeats the face painter, but then realizes that her grabber is after her and freaks out. When facing her grabber, she remembers something her grandma told her: to name your fears. So she names her grabber and is no longer afraid. She asks the grabber to help her get out, and it shows her the way out of the forest. What I like about this book is that it’s scary, but it has a happy ending.