HIDDENSEE A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker

With a storyteller's ease and a bit of a wink and a nod, narrator Steven Crossley leads the listener on a dark, wild, and altogether strange adventure. A cast-off woodcutter's son who sets out to seek his fortune as a toy maker meets a menagerie of fairy-tale creatures, musicians, and milkmaids along the way. The tale combines the darker strains of the Brothers Grimm with a hardscrabble view of early-nineteenth-century German peasant life, and without Crossley's light vocal touch, it might have collapsed under its own weight. Instead, Crossley accentuates the hopeful and redemptive tones that arise when a child finds a hand-carved nutcracker under the Christmas tree. This folktale is decidedly not for children, but for more for thoughtful adults. B.P. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2017]