Feasting the wolf

Feasting the Wolf

By Susan Price

A poignant story of best friends, set in the violent battles of the Viking world.

Ottar and Ketil are farm boys, who have listened to many exciting tales of brave and heroic warriors who form The Great Army. One day a Viking ship comes to their village, and the two friends decide to join the crew and make their dreams of battles and adventures come true.

Susan Price is a wonderful author - her knowledge and understanding of Viking times, and the myths and legends that were so interwoven with ordinary lives during that time, really gives a strong backbone to this story. Ottar and Ketil’s friendship is challenged in many ways, by both internal struggles as well as threats from the violent adventure they have chosen. Their journey together, and as individuals, is carefully written, evoking a real connection with these characters.

An excellent story - themed around courage and bravery, and the bond of friendship and family.

The Castle Corona

The Castle Corona

By Sharon Creech

A gentle slow-moving fairytale, told with warm humour.

Living in the Castle Corona are the very spoiled, and very rich, royal family. Pia and Enzio live in the village below the castle, and are two very poor, orphaned peasants. Eventually, everyone’s lives cross, with Pia and Enzio moving into the castle to become the royal food testers. There’s a mystery to solve, and a thief about, and lots of odd and quirky characters to meet.

It’s all very low-key though, all the traditional rough edges of fairytales have been smoothed over, so for example, there are no great moments of danger, and no wickedly evil characters. Everyone grows and learns something about themselves, and all go on to live ‘mostly happily, most of the time’. In this way, it was mostly a good book.

The Moondene Prince

The Moondene Prince

By Christopher Gray

Andrew is a lonely orphan, who is magically whisked away to another world, where he learns that he is must seek through the land to find the Runes of Arkhan, facing all sorts of challenges and enduring all sorts of hard-ships, and then he can claim his place as the rightful heir to the throne.

Although it is a well-told tale, it is simply and sadly lacking in originality. It’s all been done before, and unfortunately this story brings nothing new or innovative or interesting to the genre.

Junior, quest, fantasy, orphans

Into the Wild

Into the Wild

By Sarah Beth Durst

The Wild is the world of fairytales, where every tale must play itself out to its predetermined conclusion, over and over again. The fairytale characters are caught in their roles, forever reliving the same story, over and over again. Until Repunzel makes a daring escape, and imprisons the Wild. In doing so, she brings freedom to her fairytale friends, giving them the chance to make their own decisions and choose freely their own futures.

But the Wild breaks free and works to reclaim all that it lost. Julie, Repunzel’s daughter, must journey deep into the Wild to rescue her mother, her brother (Puss-in-Boots) and all her mother’s friends. Julie soon realizes how much danger she is in, especially when she is threatened with becoming entrapped within a never-ending fairytale loop.

Julie’s journey, and her meetings with many fairytale characters provides for a fun, entertaining and thoughtful story - a pleasure to read.

The Portal

The Portal

By Andrew Norriss

William, aged 13, and his brother Daniel, aged 8, live a fairly ordinary life with their parents. But one day their parents disappear, and the two brothers learn very extraordinary things about their home, their parents and themselves.

This a very enjoyable book – Norriss writes with such humour and understanding of his young characters, and the story’s plot has touches of science-fiction, mystery, adventure and family drama.

William struggles to understand the disappearance of his parents, and is confused about how to help his younger brother cope. Friends of his parents offer him help and advice, but it is William himself who eventually solves the mystery. Mixed with this is the discovery that William’s dad was the Station Master for an intergalactic portal, and that he is expected to take over the role while his dad is missing, meeting and greeting visitors from other worlds.

A fun book, with an exciting story and interesting characters.

Eggs

Eggs

By Jerry Spinelli

David’s mum dies in a freak accident, and he is sent to stay with his grandmother. He acts out his grief in anger, and makes life very hard for his grandmother, punishing her for not being the mother he loves. Primrose’s mother is a fortune-teller who marches to the beat of a different drum. Her dad is nothing more than a framed picture. Primrose’s anger comes from her mum being ‘different’ and for not loving her as Primrose thinks a mother should.

These two angry children meet up, become angry at each other, themselves, the people around them, and finally forge between them a strong friendship where they each find within the other a little of the something that’s missing in their own lives.

While the plot is deep and the characters are complicated and themes of loss and recovery are confronting – the prose is inviting and Spinelli writes with confidence and clarity. A thought-provoking and challenging book.