Lois McMaster Bujold is so brilliant... I love her books, and this novella was wonderful. There is magic and monsters, but the book is really about families, tangles they get themselves into, and above all, found families. "Knife Children" is filled with wisdom, kindness, love and sorrow. It was a very happy read :))) ( )

How lovely to revisit the Sharing Knife world. A good sold enjoyable read. ( )

Brief, apt, coming-of-age story for this series from long ago. ( )

This is basically books 1 & 2 redux, compressed, only with a father-daughter relationship instead of a romantic one. It's fine, but it doesn't really add much to the story, and we don't even get to see Dag and Fawn again (despite the promise halfway through that we will). There's not a lot of drama here, Barr, his daughter, and an unsubtle meditation on growing up. ( )

Lakewalker patroller Barr was told to stay away from his half-farmer daughter and leave her unaware of her true parentage, but he has watched her from a distance. But when Lily disappears from her family’s farm, Barr sets out to find her.

This novella technically stands alone but what I enjoyed most about it was seeing how much Barr has grown -- from an impulsive young man in Passage and Horizon into someone who deals maturely with the consequences of past mistakes, and provides proper support and guidance for a teenager whose world has been turned upside down. It’s satisfying, and hopeful, and unexpectedly poignant.

“Same jobs over and over, all have to be done again tomorrow or something dies? Despite the weather or the hurting, or, or whatever. Yeah, I guess there are some parallels.” While he was weighing this, his mouth kept moving without him. “Or maybe it’s just called being a grownup.” ( )