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| The Fur Family |
F stands for FOREST in
the
A to Z Challenge. The forest holds a sweet spot in fiction. It's where Winnie the Pooh and Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and the Fur Family all live. It's where Hansel and Gretel are lured to the witch's house, and where the seven dwarves work. Forests are beautiful, mystical, healing, yet they can also be frightening places where wolves hunt, coyotes raid, black bears prowl and vampire bats sleep hanging
from trees. If you look hard enough, you can find magical eggs in the crooks of tree branches, and elves drinking dewdrops from snowdrop cups. You might even find the entrance to a secret underground vault if you push aside twisted roots. Or the hole in the tree trunk that Alice fell into to find Wonderland.
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| Bilbo Baggins |
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| Hansel and Gretel |
Go, then, authors, into the forest. Smell the scent of turpentine pine and wet moss, feel the crunch of twigs underfoot, witness paisley patterns of light shifting over leaf cover, and the deeper shadows of troubled spirits that haunt the toadstools and rotten parts of fallen wood. Listen to the chatter of chipmunks and the crack of broken nuts. Wander down to the stream and take a place there.
Close your eyes and dream.What is your forest dream? Which characters do you see there?
