Children in Reindeer Woods / Kristín Ómarsdóttir ; translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith

This book is part of the Open Letter Initiative from the University of Rochester, an effort to translate world literature into English and expose it to a wider audience and foster a deeper appreciation for international literature.

Billie is an eleven-year-old girl living at a country home for children in need. The nation is unnamed, but it seems to resemble Norway a lot. Anyway, the time is some point in the future and there is some unexplained armed conflict consuming the nation. Even the isolated country home at Reindeer Woods is not immune from the violence, and Billie’s life is changed forever when soldiers arrive at the home and kill all but her. It’s not clear why she was spared. Is Billie a bit “retarded” as she herself sometimes wonders, or was her survival a fluke?

Billie does seem, somewhat uncharacteristically for a child, to be a bit numb to the violence that she is confronted with when one of the soldiers continues the killing by topping off his comrades and deciding to take on the role of farmer at the home in Reindeer Woods. When visitors arrive and begin to ask too many difficult questions, they seem to join the ranks of the dead (though the reader is not always sure). Billie observes all this with the insouciance of a barnyard chicken, with whom she seems to share certain traits (and whose coop she frequently repairs to). Her pretend play with her Barbies and the fantastical story of her parents that is revealed as the book progresses give this novel an air of magical realism.

Children in Reindeer Woods is hard to classify. It’s more than a little quirky, it’s a little Kurt Vonnegut-esque, and sometimes reads like a dark fairy tale. All the same, I liked it, and may look for more books in translation from the Open Letter Initiative.

12/27 On further reflection it occurred to me that the title is Children in Reindeer Woods, with emphasis on the plural form of child. Technically, since Billie is the only surviving child, it's clear that Rafael (the soldier) is included in that collective noun. He clearly is playing soldier and his interactions / relationship with Billie seem to take on overtones of child's make-pretend play. And his desire to play farmer seems to be a childlike role-play. A child soldier makes himself right at home at the home for needy children. (The original title in Icelandic is Hér, which simply means "here"-- so much for literary interpretation!)

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