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Summary
Summary
The book that inspired a legend-the first novel in the bestselling saga of Redwall
Welcome to Mossflower Wood, where the gentle mice have gathered to celebrate a year of peace and abundance. All is well...until a sinister shadow falls across the ancient stone abbey of Redwall. It is rumored that Cluny is coming-Cluny, the terrible one-eyed rat and his savage horde-Cluny, who has vowed to conquer Redwall Abbey The only hope for the besieged mice lies in the lost sword of the legendary Martin the Warrior. And so begins the epic quest of a bumbling young apprentice-a courageous mouse who would rise up, fight back...and become a legend himself.
Author Notes
Brian Jacques was born in Liverpool, England on June 15, 1939. After he finished St. John's School at the age of fifteen, he became a merchant seaman and travelled to numerous ports including New York, Valparaiso, San Francisco, and Yokohama. Tiring of the lonely life of a sailor, he returned to Liverpool where he worked as a railway fireman, a longshoreman, a long-distance truck driver, a bus driver, a boxer, a police constable, a postmaster, and a stand-up comic. During the sixties, he was a member of the folk singing group The Liverpool Fishermen. He wrote both poetry and music, but he began his writing career in earnest as a playwright. His three stage plays Brown Bitter, Wet Nellies, and Scouse have been performed at the Everyman Theatre.
He wrote Redwall for the children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind in Liverpool, where he delivered milk as a truck driver. His style of writing is very descriptive, because of the nature of his first audience, for whom he painted pictures with words, so that they could see them in their imaginations. After Alan Durband, his childhood English teacher, read Redwall, he showed it to a publisher without telling Jacques. This event led to a contract for the first five books in the Redwall series. He also wrote the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series. He died on February 5, 2011.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6 Up What on the surface appears to be just another medieval fantasy peopled with animals enacting the fight to the death between good and evil is actually a rich and thought-provoking novel on the nature of good and evil. The peaceful life of the mice of Redwall Abbey is shattered by the onslaught of the fierce rat, Cluny the Scourge, and his army of rats, weasels, and other vermin. The mice and the other peaceful animals take refuge in the Abbey's strong walls while Cluny lays seige. Advantage is with the besieged (as long as food and supplies last), and the Abbey defenders are able to withstand numerous attacks. Cluny cannot be completely defeated, however, until the sword of Martin, the legendary warrior who founded Redwall Abbey, can be found. A young novice, Matthias, embarks on a quest and ultimately finds it, but a wise cat reminds him that it is just a sword. It attained its legendary status because Martin used it only in the defense of right and good. Just as Martin's sword is neither good nor evil, the characters avoid being simply personifications of attributes. The defenders, even Matthias, have faults, while even Cluny displays characteristics which make him not likable, but at least deserving of a grudging admiration. The book is violent, and at some times downright gruesome, but the quality of the writing, the rich cast of characters, the detailed accounts of medieval warfare, and Jacques' ability to tell a good story and make readers think all earn Redwall a place on library shelves. Susan M. Harding, Mesquite Pub . Lib . , Tex. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Only the lost sword of Martin the Warrior can save Redwall Abbey from the evil rat Cluny and his greedy horde. The young mouse Matthias (formerly Redwall's most awkward novice) vows to recover the legendary weapon. In the course of his quest, Matthias forges strong ties with various local animals. As much as the magic of the sword, it is the help of these new friends that enables Matthias to defeat Cluny once and for all. Jacques's clever use of detail creates an animal world as compelling as that of The Wind in the Willows. From the beginning, each of Redwall's characters is endowed with a unerringly distinct personality: there is a powerful badger named Constance; a mute squirrel named Silent Sam, who knows the forest better than anyone; and his mother Jess, a champion climber who leads a splendid rescue of a piece of the abbey's tapestry. This epic adventure contains elements of all grand quests, with heroic archetypes that will keep fans of Tolkein and King Arthur tales engaged to the final battle. Illustrations not seen by PW. All ages. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
This first book in the well-loved British fantasy series is presented here in a tenth-anniversary edition. Though fans will miss Gary Chalk's line drawings, the new art (six full-color plates and new cover) by Troy Howell, the cover artist for all the books, should more than satisfy. From HORN BOOK 1997, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
From Britain, a highly touted first novel: an animal fantasy about a community of mice and their allies who defend their monastery against marauding rats led by the evil Cluny the Scourge (he has a remarkably strong tail that he uses as a weapon). The hero is Matthias, a humble novice who defers his peaceful ideals to follow his calling as successor to the renowned Martin, who long ago saved the monastery before withdrawing to a peaceful monastic life. With the help of old Methusaleh, the gatekeeper, Matthias unravels a key riddle and recovers Martin's lost scabbard and sword; and after a lively succession of adventures, espionage on both sides, and pitched battles with many casualties, the mice (who have not only justice but superior intelligence on their side) administer a crushing defeat to their enemies. Jacques' story abounds not only with exciting, vividly described action but with such amusing characters as doughty Constance, a warrior badger; moles whose rough speech recalls rural England and flighty ""sparras"" who speak a sort of pidgin; comic, gentlemanly old Basil Stag Hare; and Asmodeus, a venomous, dragonlike adder. But though the book is a satisfying adventure, it falls short of the great fantasies, lacking careful logic (it's hard to believe that the ascent of a roof erected by mice would present a challenge to any squirrel), and missing the sense of a place so perfectly imagined that we believe in its reality (the rats first appear in a horse-drawn wagon they have commandeered, the only hint of humans in the book). Most disturbingly, by creating unmitigatedly evil antagonists, Jacques falls into that comfortable old simplicity, the glorification of heroism in war. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 5-7, younger for reading aloud. See Focus on p.1519. BE. Mice Fiction / Animals Fiction / Fantasy [OCLC] 86-25467