Gifted (Daniel) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
“Sunrise and sunset are made of the same light, and, like gladness and sadness, you can’t have one without the other.” These words arise in the mind of Henry Fielder at the age of 16. Think he might be an old soul? Yes, oh yes. His beloved mother dies when he is 15. Then later his father kicks the bucket when a tree falls on their house in rural western Oregon. If that plotline sounds like a formulaic YA premise, don’t go there. This novel runs deep. Henry is one of those kids who doesn’t talk much, who walks the woods in wonder. Woodland creatures who usually bolt away from humans instead step closer to Henry and they share spirit. That is his gift and those are the moments Henry lives for.  READ MORE …
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers

Daniel explores an ecology of natives and invasives — plant and animal — while rendering clear-cuts and second-growth forests with the same keen eye for beauty as he does towering old growths.… His protagonist spends much of the book avoiding truths small and large…but the novel is most intriguing when Daniel pits dishonesty between his characters, not between writer and reader. In justifying the writing, Daniel undermines the terrifying and humbling aspects of his remarkable story — reasons enough to write it.
Marc Bojanowski - New York Times Book Review


[E]loquent.… [Daniel's] digressions about the landscape mirror Henry’s own attempts to find solace in an unjust, confusing world. Daniel’s impressive novel quietly builds, ending in a place where Henry can see the way…into a much more beautiful, logical future.
Publishers Weekly


Lyrical evocations of nature clash with shocking revelations of human nature in this coming-of-age story set in and around the deep woods of western Oregon in the 1990s.… An insightful though rambling stroll through the wilderness of adolescence and the Oregon woods.
Kirkus Reviews