LITTLE FUR

The first of a proposed quartet introduces Little Fur, an elf troll, tall as a three-year-old child with “slanted green eyes, wild red hair that brambled about her pointed ears and bare, broad, four-toed feet.” Little Fur lives in a wilderness protected by seven ancient trees known as the Old Ones set in the middle of a modern human city. A healer who tends the Old Ones, Little Fur embarks on a quest to save the trees from rogue human tree-burners and to thwart the Troll King’s plot to kill the earth spirit. Armed with her bag of seeds and herbs, Little Fur journeys by night with her animal helpers to find the tree guardian who sleeps in a deep earth crack. Earth-wise and stalwart, Little Fur uses her healing powers to fend off perils of the human world and prove that “sometimes small things could do what greater creatures could not.” This wee eco-fantasy heroine, with her green message, will win the hearts of young environmentalists. (Fantasy. 8-11)