The Valley of Secrets
Feb. 9th, 2011 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keladry_lupinThis book is one of my beloved Boo-Girl's suggestions. It's the story of Stephen, an orphan who learns that his great-uncle has just died and left everything to him. Stephen sets off to claim his inheritance, but there's nothing and no one to greet him at Lansbury Hall except a mystery.
There are several things about the story that don't ring true: how Amazonian plants and animals can thrive outside for decades in Cornwall, how not one single local was ever curious enough to climb the wall around the estate, and how neatly and quickly everything tied itself up in the end. I also don't like having messages, no matter how well intentioned, shoved down my throat: I was already aware of the ecological disaster in the Amazon rainforest, thank you.
But it's a fun story and a fun story within a story, and Stephen is a likable protagonist. Beautiful and detailed descriptions that occasionally went on too long to be believable (what eighteen-year-old boy notices that many details about anything?). Having said that, however, I couldn't ever visualize Tig or any of the other beasts. Tig provides sporadic comic relief, and something else gives Stephen both his mystery and his mentor.
Written by Charmian Hussey and illustrated beautifully by Christopher Crump. Young adult ecological fantasy mystery fiction, originally published in 2003 by Simon Pulse.
I give it 7 out of 10.
There are several things about the story that don't ring true: how Amazonian plants and animals can thrive outside for decades in Cornwall, how not one single local was ever curious enough to climb the wall around the estate, and how neatly and quickly everything tied itself up in the end. I also don't like having messages, no matter how well intentioned, shoved down my throat: I was already aware of the ecological disaster in the Amazon rainforest, thank you.
But it's a fun story and a fun story within a story, and Stephen is a likable protagonist. Beautiful and detailed descriptions that occasionally went on too long to be believable (what eighteen-year-old boy notices that many details about anything?). Having said that, however, I couldn't ever visualize Tig or any of the other beasts. Tig provides sporadic comic relief, and something else gives Stephen both his mystery and his mentor.
Written by Charmian Hussey and illustrated beautifully by Christopher Crump. Young adult ecological fantasy mystery fiction, originally published in 2003 by Simon Pulse.
I give it 7 out of 10.