To summarize "Into the Woods" as a musical about a bunch of seemingly disparate fairy tale characters making wishes and venturing through the woods is to undersell so much of what makes this musical special. Sondheim taps into a lot of the universal themes from those fairy tales and their lessons about pursuing wishes, facing danger, taking accountability, and making impossible choices.
But what unites all of these intrepid characters is their forest setting and what it represents. Standing in for the source of our innermost darkness, the woods can feel lonely, haunted, or dangerous. But forests are also living, interconnected places where resilience leads to growth and fearlessness helps us find our paths. In honor of Sondheim's most beloved musical, which premiered on Broadway on November 5, 1987, here are some books about going into the woods, out of the woods, and getting home before dark.
From the publisher, "In Our National Forests, Greg Peters gives an inside look at America’s most important public lands and the people committed to protecting them and ensuring access for all. From the Forest Service growing millions of…
An outdoor adventure memoir and a reflection on the importance of forests in Welsh history and myth. In 2020, the Welsh government announced plans for a national system of hiking trails similar to the Appalachian Trail in the US.…
"A work about woodland bioacoustics (the sound world of living things) might seem charming but ultimately only of interest to specialists. Haskell’s intention, however, is nothing less than to explore interconnection in nature across space…
"In this work, Rawlence travels the treeline , stopping in northern Scotland, Norway, Siberia, Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland, describing along the way the tree species (yew, pine, birch, larch, spruce, poplar, ash) that are…
"In a frightening, nearly treeless 2038, 33-year-old dendrologist Jacinda “Jake” Greenwood guides tourists on a British Columbia island where a rare forest withstood the global environmental disaster and ensuing economic collapse known as…
Joan's husband has been missing for nearly a year, but rather than accept that he is either dead or has left her, she believes she can find him and persuade him to come home. When she does find Victor again, he's a charismatic reverend…
When Maggie St. James, the author of a series of children's fantasy books goes missing, her parents hire Travis Wren for his unusual psychic tracking abilities. His only clue is the name "Pastoral," an old commune founded in the 1970's and…
With just one touch, Maisie can either kill a living thing or revive the dead. After her mother dies in childbirth, she grows up sequestered in her mother's ancestral home at the edge of a forest known for a series of tragic incidents…
A young woman leaves the starvation and ruthlessness of her failing colonial settlement to head North, with no possessions and only a vague idea of where she's going. From Booklist, "Inspired by the ""starving time"" of 1609 Jamestown,…
While playing in the woods as kids, three best friends witness a shocking and violent crime, and their testimony puts a serial killer in jail. But decades later, secrets and doubts are working their way out into the open. From Kirkus,…
A family farm at the edge of a haunted forest and the four sisters tasked with keeping the menacing forces within from breaking free. "Owen weaves together stories told by many voices—past and present—in her updated gothic ghost story,…
"In a remote village surrounded by vast forests on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have been raised on the honeyed scent of their Mami's babka and the low rumble of their Tati's prayers. But when a troupe of…
On the edge of a sprawling forest called Ryhope Wood, the Huxley family's Oak Lodge estate is just as enchanted and haunted as the nearby forest. Harkening back to a prehistoric Britain that was once primarily woodland, the forest seems to…
"In exchange for help escaping her long and wrongful imprisonment, embittered magical healer Blackthorn has vowed to set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once held dear. Followed by a former prison…
"Veris Thorn once rescued a child from the rapacious Elmever Forest and knows better than to ever enter it again. But she's forced to relive her nightmare when the equally rapacious Tyrant forces her back to the forest to rescue his…
A malevolent forest, a grouchy wizard in a tower, and the young woman sent to assist him in exchange for his protection of her village against a malevolent magical forest. "Watching the plot develop is like watching time-lapse footage of…
Evike's lack of magical abilities make her an outcast in her pagan village, so when the King sends his Woodsmen to claim a seer as a blood sacrifice, her village leaders happily hand her over rather than risk losing someone with useful…
Vern, 15 years old and pregnant with twins, flees the cult where she was raised to seek sanctuary in the arguably just as hostile woods beyond the compound. "A stirring sense of the epic animates this striking novel. Anything that remains…
Winner of the 2020 World Fantasy Award, this slim duology opener tells a love story that, at 112 pages, still manages to feel as mythic and expansive the forest setting where it takes place. When Henry Silver arrives to take over as the…
"After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.” Twenty years after the witch in…
