In North! Or Be Eaten, the second volume in the
Wingfeather Saga, Andrew Peterson has given us another rich story. I highly recommend this book for fantasy lovers of any
age.
In this part of the story we follow the Igiby family, first introduced in On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, as they stay just
ahead of the jaws of the Fangs of Dang and move one step closer to the throne of Anniera. The story is gripping and
imaginative, and dangerous--we are compelled to turn the pages to find out if the family will make it.
There a few twists, keeping the story feeling fresh.
What I like best about these books is that story world is so well developed. The creatures are delightful (and Andrew's
illustrations are way fun), and the history of the world makes it feel like a real place.
I also love Andrew's sense of humor:
"So I was in possession of the chief advisor to the High King's journal. Right there in Books
and Crannies, but now gone forever," Oskar sighed. "In the words of Vilmette Oppenholm in her essay on the decline of free
cupcakes, 'How awful.'"
And his poetic expression:
He had never been there before, but he had seen the islands from the cliff. They were brown
stony bumps on the back of the sea, like a flock of giant turtles resting off the coast.
I am not sure turtles actually travel in a flock, but the picture Andrew paints with his words is the important point. I love the brown stony bumps on the back of the sea, line. And in
the Dark Sea of Darkness, the Phoob Islands look like a flock of turtles and that sounds way better than a bale of giant
turtles, in my opinion.
The book is full of fun words, fun animals, and fun facts (fictional historical facts and quotations, I mean). And yet, the story
feels deep. There are scary, creepy
villains, and they are playing for keeps. Life is at stake. There are parents who neglect and abuse their families, and there are
good men gone bad, taking from others to save their own. There is betrayal and jealousy and an old greedy past catching up to
someone. There are inner battles and outer battles and heroes, imperfect and afraid, are pushed to the edge of sanity
and strength, and find that they can keep going. For love, they can endure.
Weaknesses? There were, I think, a couple.
One minor weakness: I was slightly bumped from the
story thinking about logistics a couple of times. Just a couple of times when things should have been dealt with, and I think would have been dealt with, if this were a true account. Since they weren't dealt with, I was reminded this was make-believe.
::::::::SPOILERS::::::::::
(highlight text to read)
The second weakness was a little more serious: I thought the two boys' actions were not sufficiently motivated in several
instances. Janner was mad at Tink without reason, he apologized, and then he did it again. Why? What would make him keep misjudging his brother? The motivation wasn't given. Then Tink runs off without being properly motivated.
I saw
that Tink was intrigued with the Strander leader, and I heard that he didn't want to be king, but I never believed he would abandon his family. If his desire to run away was building in him like steam in a teapot--about to whistle--I missed it. Why would such a smart, courageous boy so cruelly abandon his mother and his sister and his grandfather? I found it hard to believe he would, and once he did, I
disliked him for acting that way with such little provocation. This was no small thing. This character abandoned his family not knowing if they were alive or dead. It was a great plot point, but he needed sufficient motivation to make it work.
If Peterson had used his first hundred pages to show Tink's internal struggle, I think the tension and
the worry would have sucked me in. Instead of seeing a storm coming, I saw a few instances of pettiness and harsh judgment
on Janner's part--all apologized for and forgiven--and a few times when Tink said he didn't want to be king, but he kept fighting like a king and he looked like he would stay the course.
But the greatest weakness in the book, I think, is that it gets off to such a slow start. I had the same problem with this
one as I had
with the first one. I didn't care about the characters until a hundred pages in. I cried when the dog died, but I still could
have put the book down and never picked it up again, because I was
not invested in the main character. We have a marathon chase scene and I guess that might work for Peterson's target
audience, ten-year-old boys. But how much richer the book would be, even for the boys, if they could draw close to Janner and
relate to him. It's hard to relate to a character that is reactive and not proactive. To throw a character into a life and
death situation and have him running, works for one chapter, maybe. But pretty quickly you have to give us a character that takes control of his life. Otherwise we lose interest. Maybe authors have pulled off books with characters who drift along, blown about by the winds of change, I don't know. But, for me, this book didn't pull it off. As soon as Janner took control of his destiny (for good or ill), he was a great hero. Up until then, he was not easy to root for.
Weaknesses aside, Mr. Peterson is a very talented storyteller and I ended up loving this book. The last two-
thirds moved swiftly, dragging me along for the ride. And he ends so strongly that I can't help but want to read the
next book in the series.
In conclusion, I'm excited about what Andrew Peterson is doing, I love the world he's created and, by the end of the
book, I love the characters, too. I will definitely snap up the next in the Wingfeather Saga. I suggest that you buy these
books for your children. I think that ten-year-old boys (and girls, too), Mr. Peterson's target audience, probably will love
the book from page one.
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Copyright © 2009 Sally Apokedak
