Book Review – The Crow
Author: Alison Croggon
Publisher: Walker Books
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: July 2006
This book in the Pellinor series moves away from Maerad’s story and focuses on her young brother, Hem. Hem has travelled to Turbansk with the Bard, Saliman. In Turbansk he finds himself struggling with the task of learning his Bard skills and finds himself ostracised by the other youngsters of Turbansk, due to his quick temper. One day he finds a young white crow in the city. Boy and crow quickly become inseparable. His gift, bird speech, helps when the Nameless ones dark army attacks Turbansk, and during the long days and nights of this war he finally learns his true Bard gift.
Personal thoughts – Both brother and sister are important to finding of the Treesong and the defeat of the Nameless one. In this book the author focuses on Hem’s story, following his struggle to fit in with the people of Turbansk. The relationship between Hem and his guardian Saliman is enriched, when they both face the dark army during a long attack on Turbansk. During this siege Hem’s character develops into the young adult; which will no doubt appear throughout this series. After Hem finds a White Crow, he discovers a friend in the wild bird and uses the gift of bird speech to aid Turbansk.
The war scenes in this story are not glorified. The author focuses on the horror and personal tragedy of war, how individuals pay a high price for their freedom. I was never sure if the main characters introduced in this instalment would survive their ordeals, which kept my attention and drew me into their lives.
I very much enjoyed this author’s poetic writing style. Her world is colourful and her characters have real depth, as the storyline takes you through their individual journeys.
Despite enjoying this 3rd book in the series, I did feel it was slightly overlong. The war of Turbansk is detailed and I did eventually long for the plot to move onto other issues. This book is also marketed has a YA read, however, I do not feel very young children would be able to understand or grasp some issues in this series and especially this book.
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