Newbery Books discussion

anyone? anyone? :-)

I have been horrible about getting this up. Maybe a new years resolution is in order . . .

I'm trying to keep up with our reading schedule and will post my thoughts whenever the discussion gets started. This book has lots for a young reader (adults, too) to enjoy. The heroine is female and she restores an old horse to his former glory days. Wild but friendly animals come to the rescue and help save the kingdom. I didn't mind that Aerin came to realize she was in love with two men. Perhaps each was for a different time in her life. I hope the comment about spending a night awake with Luthe would go over most young girls' heads.

Robin McKinley has been a favorite author of mine since I was a teenager. I like her original fantasies better than her retellings, in general (though her book Beauty is very good and came before the Disney movie of Beauty and the Beast!). I also like some of the recent books McKinley has written like Chalice. For fans, it feels like she is returning to the type of evocative storytelling for which we first loved her.

The Blue Sword is my favorite, but I also like The Hero and the Crown. Strong female protagonist, coming of age story in which she fights not just for herself but for her family and her people, fully realized fantasy world, etc. The author obviously loves animals and makes the reader feel that, too. Aerin's relationship with Luthe did trouble me a bit, but I like Kathy's comment about it. It is a good way to think about it, that each love was for a different time in her life.

I like the fact that the magic is not an easy thing. It is a difficult gift which requires sacrifice and struggle and it can be misused. I also appreciated how insidious the dragon head's evil influence is. I hope I'm not reading too much in, but to me it shows how pride and temptation can work together to weaken us. At first we are bound with threads of flaxen cords, but over time they become chains which can drag us down to hell. We need to be more self aware and not become complacent. And the reality is that evil leaves scars, including on innocent bystanders. We don't have to experience those scars personally. Instead we can learn by "feeling" them through story. This is how fiction communicates truth. Or if we are scarred, "true" fiction can help us understand and heal, even if we don't put it into words explicitly. Sorry for the soapbox, I just get passionate about literature. :)

This story is the backstory to the Blue Sword which was written first. That interests me to see how the creative mind can work. McKinley wrote a story, and as it came alive, she found other things which needed to be explained and explored, so she created a history for Damar. I think what makes me really like the Blue Sword is that I identify more with the heroine. Not that my personality is necessarily like hers, but that she was an outsider who was privileged to be let into a magical world and found that she belonged. I think all fantasy lovers wish that they, too, could somehow find a portal into a magical world. For now we must be just observers. Anyway, enough rambling. If you liked The Hero and the Crown, I recommend that you read The Blue Sword. :)

I loved this book as a kid and I can tell you definitively that that comment did go over my head back then. I looked high and low for this book wanting to reread it a couple years ago because I remembered liking it so much back then. I was disappointed. That stuff shouldn't be in a kids' book.

Kathy wrote: "I'm trying to keep up with our reading schedule and will post my thoughts whenever the discussion gets started. This book has lots for a young reader (adults, too) to enjoy. The heroine is female a..."

I don't recommend this book to young students at the library where I work.