The Mad Wolf's Daughter

Drest's father and brothers are captured, imprisoned, and slated to be hanged. Battles, daggers, and swordplay are part of the story. One character is sometimes near death from his injuries from a murder attempt, and a knife-wielding enemy threatens to cut off Drest's ear. Past violence -- the murder of town healers (and abandonment of their small children in the woods) as witches when their patients die, the poisoning of a whole village, the killing of a young woman who fled an arranged marriage -- has far-reaching effects. Along the way, several innocents get rescued from would-be killers.

In the past, a tragic series of events unfolds when a young noblewoman is promised to a man she can't stand in a dynastic marriage.

A character taunts an enemy, "You've a head like a pig's bladder and it's full of the same muck." A character says his ribs "hurt like the devil." Another mentions how he slipped dung into the food of another kid as a prank. Drest and her brothers swap insults like "you crab-headed squid gut," often pretty much as endearments.

Adults and kids drink ale as their everyday beverage. It's the Middle Ages. Drunkenness isn't an issue.

Parents need to know that The Mad Wolf's Daughter, by first-time author Diane Magras, features an irresistible, sword-brandishing 12-year-old heroine in medieval Scotland who has to use all her courage and wits trying to save her warrior family from death at the hands of a cruel lord. And, along the way, a few other victims of mobs and bullies. Strong, affectionate family bonds -- and the possibility that people you love have done really bad things -- play a big role in the story. While the younger characters delight in outdoing one another's colorful insults, there's no profanity. Attempted murder, ambushes, and swordplay, as well as past treachery and killings, are part of the swashbuckling plot -- as are the good effects of kindness, cleverness, and diplomacy.