When I started to write the story I made a list of all the things that I thought had to be in the novel. It was all the things that I would have liked to have had in a book when I was a child. My list looked like this:
Lyn's List of Things that Must be in Into the Woods
1) Adventures
2) More adventures
3) Food. Reading makes me very hungry so I like books to have lots of descriptions of food, particularly really delicious food such as hot chocolate, jelly babies, jam donuts and treacle tart.
4) Danger!
5) Fairy tales. I still love fairy tales even though I'm quite grown up. I've never met a fairytale?even on a cold dark night?that I didn't like.
6) Wolves. I think that all stories are greatly improved by the addition of wolves. You can never have too many wolves in a story. Fangs just aren't what they should be without at least one wolf.
7) Fireworks.
8) A heroine with red hair (that's Storm, a girl who lives up to her name in every way)
9) Magic
10) More adventures.
I hope I managed to get everything on the list into the book.
I've always found woods rather creepy and exciting places. When I was a child my family and I often went for long in the countryside. We never took the obvious path. My family would delight in going through the thickest and darkest part of the wood, and I would fall further and further behind the rest of them and although I would call out 'Wait for me; I've only got little arms and little legs,' they never did wait. As I tried to catch them up it would feel to me as if the brambles and branches in the woods were reaching out like arms and hands trying to catch me. The other things that inspired the woods was one of my favourite fairy stories, Hansel and Gretel where the children get lost in the woods and meet a witch. I'm always expecting to meet a witch in the woods. Like Storm, I wouldn't be scared.
Last updated Friday?21st?August
...flawless, feisty and fun-filled...I read this book at a gallop, chuckling aloud, enjoying the ingenious twists of the plot. Don't miss it.
Christina HardymentThe Independant
...a great book...
Alison AlexanderTeen Titles
A unique and enchanting read. Highly recommended for anyone between the ages of 9 and 99.
INIS Dublin
Deliciously frightening, and full of clever touches for parents to enjoy.
The Oxford Times
This is exhuberant and magical storytelling which takes on a further life when it's read aloud.
Books for Keeps
A funky retelling of virtually every fairytale you can remember... a glorious mish-mash of ancient and modern... accompanying Gardner's merry bubbling pot of a text are some sly and clever drawings by Mini Grey.
Kathryn HughesThe Guardian
A wild, fairy tale-inspired, madcap journey with lots of acomplished black and white drawings by Mini Grey.
Aldershot Mail
A good adventure story for girls, with a strong heroine in Storm.
THE Magazine
It isn't often that reviewers, encounter a novel that reminds up why we wanted to write about books in the first place...I will say that if all the books I had to review were this good, I'd be happy ever after.
Tony BradmanTES
Into the woods is a wild, fairy tale-inspired, mapcap journey incorporating child-eating ogresses, ghost towns, hungry wolves and attempted kidnapping!
Ash & Farnham Mail
Fiesty and fun-filled
The Independant
...wittily written...
Geraldine BedalReview (The Observer)
A good adventure story for girls...
THE Book Magazine
...a triumph.
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Lyn Gardner
