Common Sense Note
Adolescents take to this swashbuckling adventure, the first in a series of well-crafted stories featuring teenage heroes.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Mark Nichol
Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, is one of the great heroes of literature for older children. Impatient, hot-tempered, and clumsy, he is much more accessible than mighty warriors such as his idol, Gwydion, although that character also appeals because of his kindness and humility.
Taran possesses another quality common to the best young characters: He may fall far short of his aspirations, but in recognizing his flaws he is able in some measure to overcome them.
Once he leaves the comfort of home, Taran suspects everyone he meets. The trail-weary Gwydion couldn't possibly be the great prince himself; Eilonwy's mistake in rescuing another man in Gwydion's place makes him doubt both her and the newcomer; Taran dismisses Gurgi as a coward until he learns otherwise.
But he comes to recognize that each one of his companions would give his or her own life for the others, and that he would do the same for any of them. The other characters, too, are engaging: the charmingly exasperating Eilonwy ("I hate crying; it makes my nose feel like a melted icicle!"), the truth-stretching Flfewddur Fflam, and the hairball-like but devoted Gurgi.
Plot Summary:
A youth impatient to escape his sheltered, uneventful life becomes embroiled in a conflict between the forces of good and evil. Taran, jokingly called an assistant pig-keeper for his role in caring for a magical sow at the farm of the enchanter Dallben, is one of the most appealing of heroes, and all too human in his shortcomings.
Related Books:
There is nothing in children's literature quite like The Chronicles of Prydain, of which The Book of Three is the first volume and The Black Cauldron, the second. One boy reveled in this book's enchantment repeatedly throughout his teens. Kids who like it will probably enjoy T. R. Barron's The Lost Years of Merlin. The first in the series of the same name, it is an intriguing account of the wizard's youth--and, like Taran, the hero of that tale knows nothing of his parentage or his destiny.
Rate It!
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ViolenceBattles large and small; understated torture by fire. Enemy forces include zombies that cannot easily be destroyed. Imprisonment, fear of capture and death. |
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Social BehaviorThe male and female heroes stereotype each other in gender-specific roles, but develop mutual respect. |
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