A review by tobyyy
Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch by Kelly Barnhill

4.0

This was an adorable story. I may be slightly biased, since I am a nature-lover and Barnhill's descriptions of nature in this short story/novelette were gorgeous.

Agnes, in her knee socks and mary janes, in her A-line dresses that her mother had made from old curtains and her pigtails pale as stars, simply had an affinity for animals. In the old barn in their backyard, she housed the creatures that she had found, as well as those that had traveled long distances just to be near her. A hedgehog with a missing foot, a blind weasel, a six-legged frog, a neurotic wren, a dog whose eardrums had popped like balloons when he wandered too near a TNT explosion on his owner’s farm. She once came home with a wolf cub, but her father wouldn’t allow her to keep it. She had animals waiting for her by the back door each morning, animals who would accompany her on her way to school, animals who helped her with her chores, animals who sat on her lap as she did her homework, and animals who curled up on her bed when she slept.

So much love for the imagery that paragraphs such as the above evoke. ♥

(I suppose it also helps that I can kind of imagine me being that girl... in my dreams! haha.)

I think the real message to this story is... love is love is love, to borrow a line from another reviewer of this story. It's an adorable tale of a woman who finds love again after her husband dies... with the added bits and pieces of natural/druidic magic. :)

And again, as with all of the Tor.com original fiction I've read thus far, I need to look up Kelly Barnhill to see what else she has written... :)