I feel I owe this book two different ratings. First, as art this is a 4 star graphic novel with lovely evocative panels and mice heroes that at the saI feel I owe this book two different ratings. First, as art this is a 4 star graphic novel with lovely evocative panels and mice heroes that at the same time feel both otherworldly and ordinary.
But as a book, I evaluate it principally as a story, and as a story it's just "Meh." The characters aren't compelling, the story is sparse to the point of hardly being there, and what there is of it neither makes a lot of sense nor does it show much originality. I like settings that can be dug down into, and the setting as presented asks you not to question it much and just go with it. The mouse heroes seem rather far from being elite mouse warriors, for though they can oddly defeat snakes many times their size they seem to get beaten by every mouse they encounter without much in the way of drama about it. The story involves treachery so predictable that it should be lamp-shaded as humor instead of played straight, and unlike something like Harry Potter, the Hobbit, or the similarly themed Redwall there isn't much for older readers to savor.
Staring at the artwork is as good as it gets....more
I've been searching for books that I can share with my daughters, so I checked this out based on recommendations for best books for young readers. TurI've been searching for books that I can share with my daughters, so I checked this out based on recommendations for best books for young readers. Turns out, it's already one of her favorite books, and she was mystified when it showed up in the library reserves because she knew she hadn't reserved it.
I shouldn't be too surprised. I think she's already read more books than I have. And, I can see why she likes the story. It's got a spunky no-nonsense heroine and a lot of sweet little touches, plus some nice world building. For me though, as an adult reader, parts of it just didn't cut it.
It starts out well enough. For the first few chapters there is rising action as we are introduced to the world of the dragons. But then we leave that world and enter a long flat period where nothing much happens and the story starts to drag, and the heroine - much to the loss of her in story country and to the story itself - becomes more and more detached from that high drama. For me, that cost the story a star.
But what took the story from being one I moderately enjoyed to being one I moderately disliked, was the last quarter of the book when the story that was on hiatus rather suddenly becomes prominent again. And the problem here was that the author wanted to have it both ways. She wanted it both to be a children's story where children talked in childish ways and offered childish solutions, and at the same time she wanted it to be a gritty and intense story of war, death, murder, treachery and destruction. These two things just can't go together.
One thing that strikes a reader reading the older versions of fairy tales is just how terrible the justice is that is dispensed upon the villains. Murderers, thieves, liars, abusers, betrayers and deceivers end up horrifically punished. The wicked step-mother and step-sister who tried to usurp the daughter's inheritance and her future, and who beat her and abused her verbally so that we no longer even remember her real name even in the story, and who wanted to condemn her to a life of unrewarding servitude in her own home, end up at the end of the story having their eyes plucked out by the birds. It's not unusual in such stories to have a murderer or a plotter of murder to find themselves the victim of their own schemes, and forced to eat live coals or placed naked in a barrel of nails and rolled through the streets until dead.
Though they were collected and recorded by the Brother's Grimm, the original fairy tales were written mostly by women who had experienced the reality of being orphans at age 10, placed in the custody of people who didn't love them and who often would verbally, physically or sexually abuse them. They knew the reality of hard labor, and of facing the prospect of forced marriages to a person who would gain legal custody of them as property. So when they told stories about protectors whom they could trust, they didn't molly coddle their intended audience with stories about weak protectors who were more concerned about the rights of abusers than the abused. They told stories of rights restored and justice definitively done. Even Disney, until quite recently at least, got that part of the story right. The story isn't over until the villain is definitively vanquished (and not for example sent home to mother and father with a slap on the wrist after trying for a double premeditated murder by slow horrific and psychological torture).
You can have talk of childish solutions when the problems are the problems facing a child and it be accepted within the frame work of the story, but when we are talking about stopping a genocide and saving the lives of everyone you know, trying to put those half-hearted measures into the mouths of your heroes seems not only vapid, but cowardly. This story isn't a story about minor injustices and the arguments of children, any more than the old fairy tales are stories of minor injustices and arguments by children safely ensconced in a protective environment. That the author is skilled enough of a writer to make the reality of war and death being described seem real on the page, and the sheer desperation of the situation palpable only makes the problem worse. Everyone around the heroine is meeting this desperate life and death struggle as a desperate life and death struggle, and the heroine is still talking in terms of avenging themselves on a school yard bully with the inevitable consequence that people and friends are suffering and dying in horrific ways. And it's clearly not a problem with the courage or the conviction of the character, but rather with the niceties that the author is pretending to in order to make this a 'children's book'.
The author wants to promote the heroine from being the victim in need of rescue, to the role of fairy tale protector. But when you make that promotion, the character acquires with it the responsibilities of the protector, to mete justice, and to truly protect those around her. But the character we end up with, occupies an awkward role halfway between helpless victim and valiant, wise, and just defender and thereby ends up being a lot less likeable and admirable in either role than one would like.
Or to put this more succinctly, children's book be damned, Creel should have without hesitation slit that bitch's throat before anyone else got killed. ...more
I was in 5th grade. Twee and silly, even if you are a kid. Like so many animal stories, I think this one is ruined if you actually have any experienceI was in 5th grade. Twee and silly, even if you are a kid. Like so many animal stories, I think this one is ruined if you actually have any experience with the animals in question. In real life, rabbits are annoying pests that taste good fried or stuffed with orange sausage dressing. If you don't cull the population, they'll breed and eat themselves to starvation. Their ecological role is to be eaten. It's essentially their purpose in life to provide a big strong link in the food chain. Something is supposed to eat them if you don't - generally speaking foxes, bobcats, various raptors, and the occasional weasel. Any time you read about someone praising how wonderful it would be for rabbits to eat your garden, you know they live in the city somewhere and never see an animal.
Regarding the author's intended commentary on sharing with the poor, it didn't really come off to a 5th grader - who read this as being commentary on ecology by someone with no understanding of it and wouldn't have connected this to the Marshall Plan even in context - and looking back as an adult, find his characterization of the needy to be condescending patronizing crap. My understanding is that modern printings are edited to be more politically correct because condescending and patronizing was apparently his thing.
It's absurd considering how well written this book is, that it's author is not better known.
The best work of original children's fantasy since Harry It's absurd considering how well written this book is, that it's author is not better known.
The best work of original children's fantasy since Harry Potter. This book is the sort of weird almost surreal but engrossing story China Miéville always wants to but inevitably fails to write, and she manages to do with no intention to shock and no reliance on archaic words. The plot structure is impeccable. Nothing exists in the story but what serves to further the story, and despite the high imagination on display the writing remains as tight as a drum and never indulges itself in flights of fantasy without purpose. Writers of fantasy, take note: this is how you write a story. Whatever age you are aiming at, however serious or leisurely your purpose, write more stories like this.
It's a bit hard to be critical of this story, and on pure enjoyment I can't find much in the way of flaws. It starts off just a little bit slow, but once it gets rolling it stays in motion and gathers speed and new power on practically every page. I wavered on whether to give it the 5th star, and settled on four only because the story seemed to lack high ambition and be content to be just a rollicking good tale. Maybe I missed it in all the fun, but just a touch of the didactic might have given this story a more complex palette. It's evident that the author is of the greatest intellect, imagination, and craftsmanship as a writer, so just a little more often being able to see into that mind would have been fun. I'm going with the 4 stars on a first rating, but before you take that as a slight against this book, check out my 2.9ish average rating for a book which is probably among the lowest on Goodreads. I don't give out even 4 stars profligately. My four is most people's five, and do not doubt that I was seriously impressed by this novel just because its missing its 5th star.
The reason I wavered still is that so many stories with so much more ambition are written by authors that seem to despise that one most essential ambition of being a good storyteller. I'll take a tightly written tale filled with fun and wonder over a novel of the highest intellectual ambition, but not the slightest sense of having a plot and no element of craftsmanship larger than an apt metaphor, a pretty sentence or a snarky self-aware paragraph. If I had my way, I'd award Pulitzer and Noble prizes for literature to authors like Hardinge showing this skill of craftsmanship over self-important deliberately obscurant prose every single time. It takes more skill to write a book like this than any number rambling of 2000 page post-modernist tomes that exist mainly to show off or shock, or for readers to impress on other readers just how serious they are as readers for having clamored through such glutinous prose. Frances Hardinge deserves better accolades than she is receiving.
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