#me:4

[youngestrunningleek]

Urchin and the Raven War

I’m running out of things to say about returning to Mistmantle…

You know the drill, by now. This post is reviewing The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book Four: Urchin and the Raven War. It was published in 2008, written by M. I. McAllister and illustrated by Omar Rayyan.

You also know the deal about spoilers. There will be spoilers, as well as discussion of violence and death.

This book jumps forward in time a significant amount (although it doesn’t specify how much). Urchin is fully grown, and Princess Catkin (who was a baby last book) is up and around. She is talking, making decisions, and fed up with boring island life. When swans from Swan Isle come for help, the animals of Mistmantle go to their rescue. Doing that, though, draws the anger of a flock of ravens and Mistmantle is put under siege.

I’ll confess I was pretty anxious about this book. Last one was especially good, worthy of being an ending to the whole series. Luckily, book four delivered. I love that every book has very distinct tension. There’s usually a mix of threats from outside and inside the community.

It’s hard to say if the books are getting better, or if I’m just growing fonder of the series. I’m far from objective at this point. But that’s also a major testament to McAllister’s skill. She makes a world, and characters, that really draw readers in. I think Rayyan’s illustrations continue to improve, too. This is an archetype of the genre. This is what animal fantasy for children should be.

What could be better than a generational story with an ensemble cast? It’s very special to see characters mature and grow in responsibilities. The books were published at a rate of about one per year (which is remarkable) and I’m curious how people who actually grew up with this series felt about seeing characters go from children to being adults. The characters certainly grow up faster than the readers.

I really think that, finally, we got a Mistmantle book without a boring early bit. The other consistent problem, of too many characters, is also slightly improved. I think it helps to have characters who are swans and ravens.

This book has swans shown in a more sympathetic light, after they were kind of empty-headed in the first book and they didn’t even talk in the second. The ravens are pretty flatly dehumanized, though. It’s a common trope with nonhuman protagonists to have another species be monstrous. “Maybe rats and mice are okay, but owls and snakes are even worse!”

One character, Corr, is a young otter who’s searching for adventure. I find his journey interesting because he lives on his own for a while, after leaving home. It makes me wonder— what would society be like, if we could easily go off into nature and live without other people? If a human wants to try being self-sufficient, they’d need a lot of distance from other people, plus clothing, shelter, tools, and training to boot. But couldn’t Corr just hunt fish to feed himself?

Later, the otter Fingal kisses a squirrel on the cheeks because he promised he’d kiss whoever killed the raven prince. That’s the closest the books have gotten to addressing inter-species relationships.

Speaking of… At one point, a healer is urging Urchin to stay alive.

“Stay, Urchin,” she said. “Stay with me. Stay for Mistmantle. Stay for Crispin, for Juniper, for Needle, for all of us. Think of—” Is he in love with anyone? Take a guess. Stay for Sepia. Stay for your friends.”

That cracked me up. And, it made me realize how light on romance the books are. Almost all of it happens offscreen. Usually, we have a couple and then timeskip to them being parents. The most interesting relationships are platonic. I like that.

One thing I admire about this series is the treatment of violence. In the first book, a mole assassinates someone and then is killed himself. This book brings back his brother, seeking vengeance. That made me realize, violence is essentially never the answer in these books. It just begets more violence.

Ultimately, Mistmantle defeats most of the ravens with sticky nets. Plus, leadership struggles make the ravens fight each other.

At the end, even though the Mistmantle animals cut down the surviving ravens, they’re so badly injured that they die within minutes. That detail was so unbelievably convenient that I had to laugh.

Now for some worldbuilding. This book finally made Threadings merit the capital T, in my opinion. We meet a hedgehog who occasionally, unintentionally, includes the future when she’s making the tapestries that tell Mistmantle’s history. It’s pretty cool to imagine someone accidentally including the future in a historical document. Preemptive history.

There’s another kind of prophecy with the Silver Prince. He’s a kind of messiah for the ravens. They used to rule Swan Isle, but after they were defeated they promised never to return unless they had a Silver Prince to lead them. The swans agreed because silver ravens are rare, and only female.

I was wondering if I’d be able to claim him as a trans icon, but it seems like he’s just a grey raven who they got overly excited about. (You can still headcanon him as trans tho.)

Aah, these books make me happy.

I would love to hear any opinions about this series, especially if you read it when you were young!

My personal rating: 4.5 My overall rating: 4

[mittochini]

The next Mass Effect should have a biotic-god volus companion, or a rogue spectre hanar with a liscense to kill. That's what the millions of investment money should be spent on, in this essay i wi

[melissagt]

Mass Effect Andromeda

Sara Ryder & Reyes Vidal

HQ

[crlven]

its him, that space boy

[youngestrunningleek]

Urchin and the Heartstone

We’re going back to Mistmantle, baby!

Today’s review is The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book 2: Urchin and the Heartstone. This was published in 2006, written by M. I. McAllister and illustrated by Omar Rayyan.

Content warning: this review will mention vomit and ableism (again)

This is the first sequel I’ve reviewed. I was not very detailed about the plot in my first review, but this one will get more in-depth. I’m also not going to explain the premise as much since I covered that in the last book.

In this book, the protagonist Urchin is kidnapped and brought to another island called Whitewings. All the while, the Heartstone that Mistmantle needs to crown a king is missing.

I really liked this book’s focus on the difficulties of running the island. The Heartstone is missing because of the bad guy from the last book. And some of the problems on Whitewings are caused by all the soldiers that Mistmantle exiled at the end of book one. It felt like the right balance between new challenges and connecting to the first book. It’s not as simple as replacing a bad king with a good king.

This book had two issues that the first book also had. For one thing, the middle bit is kind of boring. There’s a lot of “character A B C finds out that character X Y Z is doing something”. And we have to talk about the number of characters.

During this book, I started writing a character guide on a bookmark. It was simple things like “Whittle, training as lawyer and historian”. By the end, my scrap of paper was running out of space, with 18 characters, and I was still having double-take moments near the end of the book.

I wonder how this would go over as a visual format. Comics, TV shows, etc tend to be able to get away with more characters.

One other issue I have is with the A and B plots. For a book called “Urchin and the Heartstone” it’s not really about Urchin doing anything with the Heartstone. It’s moreso a book about Urchin, which also has some parts about the Heartstone. Because we had Urchin kidnapped on an entirely different island, it was very hard to care about the Heartstone search on Mistmantle. It sort of just deus ex machina’s itself into appearing, once he’s back home.

And speaking of deus ex machina, the bad guys' castle sinks into the ground at the end. There's no final confrontation.

Urchin is kind of a MacGuffin in his own way. People on Whitewings want a Marked Squirrel, so they take Urchin because his fur is mostly white. He's central to the plot because the bad guys decided he was central to the plot. It does make me wonder why the cover doesn’t show him that way, though. He’s pretty obviously a plain red squirrel on the cover.

All that said… I loved this book. It’s an excellent sequel to an excellent book!

So, let’s list some of the great things.

For one, the reunification at the end of the book really is delightful. Too many characters or not, I love this cast. And it’s so heart-warming to see the whole island celebrating the heroes’ return. After he spends so much of the book trapped alone in a tower, Urchin “was back among animals who hugged you and squashed up beside you and didn’t mind much what you smelled of”. D'aww.

Another cute image is children making snow-squirrels with tails that fell off.

I also think it’s very notable that this book doesn't have many evil disabled people. So often in children’s books, especially in animal books, villains have scars or mental illnesses. There is some of that, but it’s much better than the average story in my opinion.

Ableism, or generally fear of difference, is always a villainous trait. Urchin is called a freak on Whitewings, even though his fur is just a different color.

There’s also a pattern where the priests of islands have some kind of disability, like Brother Fir on Mistmantle having a limp. Juniper is another priest-like squirrel. He was hidden away from the culling because of his turned-in paw, and he also has a lung condition.

Generally, I admire that McAllister tells a solid good-versus-evil story. There’s powerful imagery of dust, decay and death for the bad guys. But, there are still gray areas, such as Scatter the squirrel deciding to be loyal to Mistmantle instead of Whitewings. That doesn’t mean she’s automatically innocent, though. The book doesn’t put everyone into a box of either good or evil, and it doesn’t completely ignore someone’s problems if they’re on the side of good.

I do feel obliged to address the inter-species biases… But frankly, I think this book handles them excellently! There’s a moment early on where a squirrel says otters and moles would rather be in the water, or underground, than rule the island. That got my hackles up.

But, after a second reading, it’s not the text itself saying that. It’s the characters. They’re not treating that opinion as fact.

Later, there’s an attempted coup by hedgehogs. I was very surprised about how firm the book is about their “hedgehogs are the only ones who should be in charge” rhetoric. Basically everyone, hedgehog or not, shuts them down immediately.

I appreciate that because, in real life, there are biases. There will be prejudice, and it’s more realistic to show people working through it than to show none at all.

Also, it’s cool that the dynamics vary over time and in different places. Whitewings has moles, hedgehogs and squirrels, but no otters.

A cool piece of worldbuilding from this book was the way the Heartstone works. It jumps out of your hands unless you’re worthy. Also, the reason people can take mole tunnels between islands is that the tunnels predate the water. Cool! Wind Waker made me love anything where the current world is just a flooded version of the old one.

This book had swans, like the last one. But here they are basically mounts. I don't even think we directly hear dialogue from them, even though last book had an island ruled by swans. Weird.

Also, I am pretty sure these guys are human-sized with human lifespans. But, they mention a dead sparrow on a kind of stretcher, at one point. Not sure what that means. Are sparrows the same size as the people? A human doesn't need a stretcher to carry a dead sparrow.

One final note, since I talked about it in the last review: an early chapter of this book had a squirrel throwing up. Wow… they don’t just have human abilities of language and tool-making, they can also vomit like us…

My rating: 4

Overall rating: 4

[youngestrunningleek]

How To Save Your Tail*

*If You Are A Rat Nabbed By Cats Who Really Like Stories About Magic Spoons, Wolves With Snout-Warts, Big, Hairy Chimney Trolls ... And Cookies Too

Hi everyone, I have another rat review. Normally I like to do the format of 1) post title, 2) little quip, 3) picture of the cover of the book, and then I actually start the review in earnest. This time, it's just the subtitle of the book because that's joke enough as-is.

This book is written by Mary Hanson, illustrated by John Hendrix, and published in 2007. And yes, the full title is How to Save Your Tail* *if you are a rat nabbed by cats who really like stories about magic spoons, wolves with snout-warts, big, hairy chimney trolls ... and cookies too.

It's certainly a title of a book! I might have used a semicolon or two, but it gets the job done.

Anyway, this is a book meant for ages 6 to 10. It's about a rat named Bob, who gets caught by a pair of cats and prolongs his life by telling fairy tales that happened within his family. He also loves baking cookies, and they have periodic cookie breaks between stories.

It's not bad, for what it is. It's not problematic in any major ways, which is more than some kids' books can say. I am not the intended audience, but I'm sure lots of kids would enjoy it. And making reading fun is very important!

There's some nice remixes of fairy tales. I like that sort of thing. Yeah, what if the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk were also Puss in Boots? I've never seen that done before. That's fun.

There is a warthog king who does turn into a frog after a kiss, and he does then have many children with Bob's grandmother. They're explicit about the babies being frog-rats.

I think a lot more writers need that confidence. You can literally make anything happen in your story so you might as well reveal that the protagonist is 1/4 frog. Readers will deal with it.

The illustrations are nice. There's a handy little family tree at the start, which has a dual purpose. Yes, it's a reference while you read, but it's also a strong hook. "Why did some of Mozzarella and Basil's other children die of heartbreak or lead lives of crime? What's going on with Clinkenbeard, Elvis, and Mush?"

Now, I don't expect people to read this book. But, this is my job, so I'll use this as a chance to talk about rat tropes in general.

Yes, real cats shouldn't eat cookies. But I assume whatever magic lets them talk and cook food also makes it fine that they're having chocolate.

I appreciate that Bob is a rat, not a mouse. One reason rats tend to be villainous in fairy tales is actually down to translation. Even if a language originally didn't distinguish between "rat" and "mouse", people converting stories to English often give more heroic roles to mice. See The Lion and the Mouse (where the modest prey animal actually saves the King of the Jungle) or The Rat and the Oyster (where a foolish creature dies for its arrogance).

The stories we tell about mice and rats are sort of chicken-and-the-egg with our cultural view of them. Because we see rats as less likeable, we cast them in less-likeable roles, which makes them seem less likeable...

This is due to a few things, including the fact that mice have shorter snouts and big ears. People find them cuter, on average. They also feel less troublesome. Not only do they eat less food because they're smaller, their traces are less obvious than the ways rats feed.

So, yeah, people can make mice seem more heroic by contrasting them with rats. Bob didn't have to be a rat, and in fact, it's more likely that cats would prey on mice. Rats are oftentimes a little too big for them. So, good on you, Mary Hanson and John Hendrix!

Rats were spared, this time. But they kind of passed the buck on to shrews. Bob's aunt Griselda has a kind of Cinderella situation with an evil stepmother and stepsister. She gets blessed(?) with gems that appear for every word she says, while her wicked stepsister is cursed to make snakes and toads appear when she says nasty things. And of course one of the snakes eats them both. These are fairy tales, so the punishment for being unvirtuous is death.

I mean, it makes sense. "Shrew" and "shrewish" are used as insults, just like "rat". Sorry, Soricidae fans.

But the peak of the book has to be the forcefem.

So, the final story Bob tells is his own. His aunt had a cruel stepmother and stepsister, but technically the riff on Cinderella is this one. There's a witch's apprentice named Cindy, and Bob lives in the hearth. It sucks because he loves reading but the witch's only book is Hansel and Gretel and Other Recipes. (That got a chuckle out of me.)

So anyway, Charming's parents throw a ball because they're scared he won't ever meet someone. Cindy makes a wish, a fairy godmother appears, but she's new to the job. She abandons Cindy, and leaves her spellbook behind.

Bob tries to help out, and gets the spell wrong.

Glitter swirled about the kitchen. Bob's legs felt funny. When the air cleared, his handsome fur was gone. He was smooth and silky and much too tall. Instead of a tail and whiskers, he wore glass slippers and a blue gown. A diamond tiara encircled his head and, if truth be told, Bob was the fairest maiden in the land.

I wasn't even obsessed with rodents as a kid, but I feel like if I had read this book it would have made me feel things. Heck, it makes me feel things now. "Beautiful silken maiden who is internally a rat" is gender. Thank you for this gift, Hanson.

And of course Cindy becomes the horse. And of course the witch becomes a pumpkin.

And of course Prince Charming is way way way too into horses and so he falls in love with Cindy anyway. I love that. Good for them.

I simply cannot be the horse blog person, but ... There's a kind of enchantment about them that no other creature has. It's a well-known fact that horses are basically large rats.

So, yeah, wasn't expecting that bit. This is possibly why Bob is a rat-- it's just funnier to have the beautiful maiden secretly be a rat named Bob than if (s)he's a mouse. But, really, it's not even transphobic. Good for them!!!

And that's my review.

To be honest, I feel self-conscious with this post. More than with anything else I've reviewed, I'm embarrassed to say I enjoyed it. This book isn't at all meant for adults. It's not a well-known children's classic. It's not even presenting an educational message in an accessible way. It's "just" entertainment.

But it's also very special to me, because a friend gave me a copy. Being seen is a gift! So huge shoutout to my friend for this.

My personal rating: 4

My overall rating: 3

[youngestrunningleek]

The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book 5: Urchin and the Rage Tide

We’re going through the mists, one last time…

Today I’m reviewing the fifth and final book in the Mistmantle Chronicles.

Yeah, yeah, at this point people know the drill. There’s a lovely island inhabited with moles, otters, hedgehogs, and squirrels. Spoilers ahead. This book (written by M. I. McAllister, illustrated by Omar Rayyan, published in 2010) features Mistmantle getting hit with an awful storm called the Rage Tide. There’s also a charismatic troublemaker named Mossberry.

The first thing I have to say is something embarrassing.

This entire time, I’ve been thinking that the animals were human-sized. It was the way they talked about food. I thought, surely they’re treating acorns the way we would. They pick up sea urchins like they’re hand-sized. A fish for us is part of a meal, but for small animals one fish would be a feast for several creatures.

But, no. I’m the world’s biggest goof. There is a castle built in the roots of a tree. There’s simply no way they’re not to scale with real world animals.

But they do age like humans. This book (finally) gives us an exact number on the time that passes! Eight years. Our hero Urchin is full grown, with a page of his own.

The beginning is a pure delight, as it should be. If your fantasy book about squirrels doesn’t have a joyful winter solstice party at the beginning, what are you even doing? No, really. It’s so essential to show why this world is worth protecting and treasuring.

From there… that’s where the pacing gets funny. These books will not-infrequently have confusing timelines, where island-wide events happen in just a few days or a few hours.

There’s a warning about the storm during the solstice party. Meanwhile, Mossberry the squirrel is undermining animals’ belief in the monarchy and Brother Juniper. Chapter 3 has Urchin discovering that, and asking Mossberry’s followers to explain what’s going on. Chapter 4 has the beginning of the Rage Tide and the confrontation with Mossberry. And by chapter 5, it’s over.

After that, I was like… wait, what is this book about?

There’s a pair of children who are missing for a few chapters. I was never really invested. Urchin’s page leaves the island to look for Sepia, who got washed away. And ultimately it turns out there is another Rage Tide coming toward Mistmantle. But all in all, I think the confrontation with Mossberry was rushed.

Honestly, I dislike the addition of Mossberry. Book 3 already had irrational fear and mistrust being the enemy (and Linty, who mistakenly believed she had to hide Princess Catkin). After so many books where I was positively surprised by the treatment of disability… Mossberry is kind of just “evil because he’s crazy”.

He’s delusional and it’s not explained in any detail like it was for Linty. He spends most of the book in a cell yelling obscenities. There was one bit of sympathy that I liked: Padra the otter captain says that Mossberry can’t get away from himself. Anyone else can just go away, but Mossberry’s stuck with himself. But overall, it’s not ideal.

Two further notes about disability: the otter scribe Tay is described as using a wheelchair. We get no further description. I want to see how an otter wheelchair works!

Also, at the end of the last book, the squirrel Scatter got injured. She started as a maid for Lady Aspen, and even years after Aspen was revealed as a murderous traitor Scatter was loyal and carefully maintained her grave. Scatter was injured during the Raven War and couldn’t walk anymore. But unless I missed it, Scatter isn’t mentioned at all in this final book. It’s just interesting that she’s been around since book 1 but didn’t appear at all in this one. Especially since we know animal wheelchairs apparently exist!

Some notes about species equality:

Overall, this series handles it the best out of most series I’ve read. I love the balance between making species matter (otters tend to like the water, squirrels leap through trees) and subverting the generalizations (not all moles hate the water, and Hope the hedgehog is just as good at digging as the best moles). Mistmantle has an otter scribe in the beginning, but a squirrel trains under her and takes over. We see some squirrel priests, but in this book an otter is training to be the next one and it’s not unusual.

The second chapter has a discussion about captains. They want at least one captain for each of the species, but they’re also concerned that would mean not choosing the best animals for the job. So basically they’re talking about affirmative action. It’s just interesting.

In spite of being the fifth book, the book does a good job of introducing things and explaining them (which is awesome in a children’s book). McAllister really knows her stuff.

I could just be getting fonder of the books. But I really think Rayyan has been improving, book-by-book. His art’s really sensational.

To get back to Sepia, the squirrel washed away early on: she and Urchin are kinda-together in this book. In the last review, I mentioned how funny I thought it was when Queen Cedar basically shrugged and guessed Urchin might be interested in Sepia. I buy the relationship in this book— they’re two likeable characters with a lot of positive traits. Eight years is plenty of time for feelings to develop.

But it’s also interesting to me since it’s another off-screen romance. We get the eight year timeskip, now they’re in love, and even during this book they mainly just think about each other because they’re separated. These are highly platonic books, with a lot of focus on the strong non-romantic relationships.

Before Sepia can get back to the island, though, there’s a sacrifice. One of the big details of the book which I haven’t mentioned yet is that King Crispin has to trade his life for Sepia’s.

It did get me. Knowing this book series was ending, and seeing this character I’ve known for five books, made me sad.

But if I’m honest, that emotional punch is one of the big things keeping this book afloat for me. This book would be notably worse, for me, if it didn’t have that emotional aspect. And I wish the death had happened in a better book.

The books say that Crispin was actually injured ever since the Raven War in the last book. It’s weak writing. He was technically on the verge of death buying time for eight years, except no one really noticed, so…? It’s too convenient.

These are generally great ensemble-cast fantasy books, though. We see the young people growing into the next generation of adults safeguarding the island, with proteges of their own. I love that.

I also want to talk about faith. There’s a perspective in these books that I hadn’t quite seen before.

I think this series has a uniquely positive view of religion, while also not just being pro-Christianity. Children’s books will sometimes have Christian elements that, y’know, bring up a lot of weird questions. What does it mean if Redwall characters are talking about Satan?! Or maybe they have basically-Christianity, but with different names.

But in this world, faith truly is a positive force. The books aren’t unquestioningly saying that we should believe. It’s not “the Heart is like God and that’s why it’s good and we should believe in it”. We legitimately see the power of the Heart. Plenty of times in every book, people pray because it’s all they can do.

It makes a lot of sense, because McAllister is married to a minister. The author bio in all the books is something like “M. I. McAllister wrote the Mistmantle Chronicles, she has children, she lives in England, and she’s married to a minister.” So clearly, faith is important to her. But it’s also fascinating that someone like that didn’t just make mouse-Christianity. The books have their own faith which is very different in some ways.

Getting back to this book, in particular: one of the ideas for how to get Sepia back through the mists (since she left via water, she can’t return that way) is to bring her the Heartstone. In book two, that’s how Urchin and Juniper miraculously came back via water. They unknowingly had the Heartstone on their ship.

But, this book explains that the Heartstone isn’t just a magic relic. It’s not an exact science and besides, it would be wrong to treat the Heartstone as a tool to get through the mists.

I would never come up with that perspective. I’m not religious, so to me it really would just be a magic item for gaming the system. The books really show-don’t-tell why faith matters. It’s awesome.

On a lighter note— McAllister also seems to enjoy scenes where one character is like “I’ve failed you, my King. Take back this sword, I don’t deserve it, I’ve done such a bad job here that I have to resign”. And then the King is like “no, you’re so good at your job I won’t let you!”.

And you know what? She’s darn right! It’s so cool! Great trope!

My personal rating for this book: 4

Overall rating: 3.5

Also, I haven’t done this before, but I want to rank the series as a whole. The Mistmantle Chronicles has truly been an unexpected joy for me. These past few months have had plenty of days when I really needed stories about loyal animals who love each other. And most importantly, stories written at an easy reading level. But they also start to bring in serious themes, and they generally treat them in a positive way. I have never read a better series in this genre. I highly, highly, highly recommend them.

My personal rating for this series: 4.5

Overall: 4.5