Amos Daragon: The Key of Braha (2012), by Bryan Perro

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 17.5.

Amos Daragon: The Key of Braha

Amos Daragon: The Key of Braha, second in Bryan Perro’s “bestselling twelve-book children’s series” (dustjacket), is a complicated narrative reminiscent of Garth Nix’s Grim Tuesday or Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.  The language and characterization, however, and especially the humour, seem aimed at a younger reading audience, one too young to fully grasp the political machinations driving the plot. The problem lies perhaps the translation—there must be better phrases than “positive gods” and “negative gods” for whatever the French is, for example (3-4)—but other characteristics of the text suggest that the writing itself was lacking in the original.

The plot is interesting, and I must say that the dénouement almost redeems the novel, but unfortunately not quite. The Key of Braha is a legendary key that will purportedly open the gates to “paradise” and “hell” (2) from the City of the Dead, Braha, where souls are judged. The doors have been sealed, and it will take a mortal who descends to the underworld and yet lives—or lives again—to unlock the mystery and the doors. Through the complex intrigues that provide the novel’s greatest interest, Amos Daragon is manipulated into this role. His search for the truth of what is happening to him is a well-constructed plot, but his characterization does not support the intelligence his author claims for him.

Amos Daragon’s cleverness in this novel does not rise to the level of the more experienced young reader: although King Junos claims that Amos is “wiser than most of my white-bearded advisors” (25), the ways in which he “tricks” his opponents are—in youthful parlance—lame. When a dead soul has no coin to offer Charon, Amos argues: “this man has nothing to pay their fare, well, I’ll pay if for him. In fact, if you allow them on the boat, I’ll offer you twice nothing” (49), a ruse which works, and is thus the first of many instances where the reader is amazed not at Amos’s brilliance so much as the stupidity of his adversaries. The three riddles he has to solve are equally unimpressive, as is his trick in stealing a golden spoon to prove himself the best thief in the city, or the argument that gains him the key in the end: “You were to keep the key until the light of the candle went off on its own,” the keeper of the key complained; “Yes, but I just blew it out. Therefore it did not go off by itself” is Amos’s “clever” rejoinder (155-6). This level of trickery is amusing to primary school children, perhaps, but the Ragnarök plot that Perro has created is more appropriate for the more mature intermediate or middle school student.

The Wolves of Woden (2001), by Alison Baird

I love time-slip novels, and was excited about the premise of The Wolves of Woden, which brings together two fascinating periods in history and legend: World War II Newfoundland and Arthurian England. Alison Baird weaves a tapestry in her settings; her descriptions both depict and suggest the strangeness of Jean’s seeming temporal disruptions, the uncanny sense of each world being more real than the other. Her characters are well-drawn, too, and her plot tight and interesting.

So why, I ask myself, did I not enjoy the book more? The problem lies, I think, in exactly that sense of neither world having obvious primacy over the other. Jean’s life in Annwn seems more important while she is there, and the reader can engage most easily in the fantasy nature of the narrative, but yet the text suggests that Jean’s role in Annwn is actually an important quest not only for Annwn, but for Newfoundland as well.

Baird has created parallel universes, not different temporal situations, for her protagonist to move between. In Annwn, where magic is known exist, they understand that their world is real, our world the shadow; in Newfoundland, Jean cannot discuss Annwn, for no one would believe her. The connection between the two worlds, too, is posited as real: what happens in Annwn is not only reflective of, but also causal in what happens on the battlefields of France. The suggestion—voiced by the Shade of King Arthur, no less—is that through her pivotal role in overcoming Woden in Annwn, Jean is responsible for the hope that comes into our world: in The Wolves of Woden, our “hope” lies explicitly in the Americans entering the war in 1941, which enabled the ultimate defeat of Germany. While the concept of a causal connection between the medieval, magical battle in Annwn and the very real carnage of World War II is interesting, the linkage is rather complicated and thus less effective than it might be. Sacred weapons are transported into our world, and then back, changing magical properties in their journeys; despite her magical abilities, Jean has no control over her passage between worlds, but is taken from Newfoundland when she is needed in Annwn; people we care about die in both worlds, as the Nazis and the Lochlannach violently invade the lands they would conquer. I am never sure—even in the end—what Jean’s real role in Annwn was or will be: the premise for her involvement is not sufficient. Jean is taken into Annwn on a number of occasions, and returned to Newfoundland once Woden’s forces are vanquished. That battle over, and with the Americans entering the war in Europe, the text suggests, all will be fine and ultimately return to normal. While it seems possible to accept the trope of “the return to normal life” in the fictional setting, familiarity with World War II history does not permit such as simple view regarding our world. Despite the ultimate defeat of Nazism, four full years of horrific war seem to be trivialized somewhat by Baird’s comparatively short fantasy battle. Perhaps for younger readers, historical knowledge will not impinge upon a sense of hopeful closure for Jean… but is the lack of historicity required doing them a disservice?

The Joyous Story of Astrid (1931), by L. Adams Beck

In my other life, I work for the Canada’s Early Women Writers (CEWW) project, headed by Dr. Carole Gerson at Simon Fraser University.  The project aims to construct an online database of all Canadian women who published—in any genre, in any forum—before 1950.  CEWW is one of the seed projects for the larger database project, the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC), run out of the University of Alberta, and headed by Dr. Susan Brown.

Connecting my love of early Canadian literature with my love of children’s literature, I have been reading through the children’s texts written by some of our authors, with the intent of sharing them—if only superficially—with others.  The first such text was The Bells on Finland Street, by Lyn Cook.

The Joyous Story of Astrid (1931)

“L. Adams Beck” is one of the three pseudonyms used by Elizabeth Louisa Moresby Beck; the others are “E. Barrington,” which she used for historical fictional biography, and “Louis Moresby,” which she used for non-fiction. Beck was from a prominent British imperial family, and travelled extensively in the Orient before settling in Victoria, BC. Moresby Island, a part of the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, is named after her paternal grandfather.  The pseudonym “L. Adams Beck” was used primarily for writings dealing with Eastern mysticism and religion, which she studied intently. The Joyous Story of Astrid, while not predominantly religious or philosophical, does present tales from Asian traditions to the young Canadian reader.

I must admit that I am generally skeptical about the quality of many novels for children written in the early twentieth century: so many of them are trite and prescriptive at best, and positively controlling at worst (wait for my upcoming review of Little Gray Doors [1926], by Alexandrina Woods). The Joyous Story of Astrid, however, delighted me in its freshness, its lack of prescriptive condescension, and its healthy representation of an eschatology that differs from the prevailing Christian notions of Heaven and Hell.  The writing style is somewhat dated, unsurprisingly, but I would still heartily recommend the text to young readers today. My only regret is perhaps that it does not actually present a philosophical belief to young readers; I think Beck would be admirable proponent of a more explicit message, so balanced is her presentation in this short story cycle.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a short story cycle is a collection of short stories contained within an over-arching narrative frame; the stories and the frame narrative together construct the whole of the narrative. In The Joyous Story of Astrid, we are introduced to Astrid, a “moon-child” as she is born beneath a full moon right on the stroke of midnight. Thus, she belongs to the Moon Goddess, and sleeps all day, coming out to frolic with her nocturnal friends in the forest at night. By and by, the Moon Goddess tells her stories of her own life, as well as the lives of children and animals and mythical creatures in other lands: China, Japan, India… lands where the people believe in the magic Astrid lives by. The stories themselves are delightful, although interrupted perhaps too much by the narrative frame plot in which the Mr. Mouse and the Mouse Queen orchestrate the marriage of the Mouse Princess, with the help of Astrid and her wish-dog, Jock.

As Astrid learns more about “true dreaming” and the creation of “mind-flowers,” she learns more about “The Back of Beyond,” the place where all knowledge will be acquired. Initially, this seems to be a metaphor for the Christian Heaven, but by the end of the text, Astrid and Jock cross the “Cold River” and enter the Back of Beyond, where “they were slowly beginning to see that a wonderful new story, which yet was the old story too, was starting for them, exactly as when the daffodil bulb hidden underground sends up a golden flower into the sunshine” (281-2). The Back of Beyond is a magical place, where the gods and fictional characters are real, where there is no need of houses or protection, where maturity and vision have been achieved and the toil and hardship of life falls away: a nirvana for children, presented in a simple and powerfully enticing way.

The Water Horse (1990), by Dick King-Smith

The Water Horse is a delightful tale for young readers. I had seen the movie, and I suppose I should not have been surprised that the book was completely different: a far better book than the movie would have made.  I can see, though, how the book itself does not present enough conflict to sustain the hour and a half required of major motion picture, but that is part of what makes it delightful: it is a simple story of keeping Crusoe, the Water Horse, safe from predators, animal and human.

The writing style is simple, perfect for early readers, as are the tensions inherent in possible attacks by natural predators of small creatures, by the onset of winter weather, by the possibility of human aggression or over-interest.  The incidents are long enough to create sufficient anxiety in the reader, without over dramatizing the threats Crusoe faces.

The length of the book, too, is aimed at younger readers; I finished it on the 45-minute bus-ride home from work. The chapters are short, and all end neatly with a hint of what will come, but at a level of interest that should allow parents to wrest the book from young hands at bed-time…

Overall, I would highly recommend The Water Horse to readers between about 5 and 9. The movie, I must say, I liked as well, but it was an overly predictable Hollywood plot superimposed on this simple and heartwarming story of a Scottish family (yes, unlike the movie, the father plays an integral part in the tale) who keep alive not only Crusoe, but their culture’s mythic traditions.

Many Waters (1986), by Madeleine L’Engle

With Many Waters, Madeleine L’Engle returns even more deeply to the Christian narrative, retelling the story of Noah and the flood through the eyes of Sandy and Dennys, who have inadvertently travelled back in time after fooling around with their father’s computer. I must admit that I had to force myself to finish Many Waters; I have been spoiled lately by the plethora of authors who are extremely careful in their research and create worlds that do not demand too great a suspension of disbelief from their readers (Kristin Cashore, K.V. Johansen, Megan Whalen Turner, Philip Pullman, and Rick Riordan all spring readily to mind).

The idea of revisiting Biblical stories in fictional form is fabulous, but the introduction of unicorns that materialize only when one believes in them, and can be called into being most readily by border-collie sized mammoths, troubles the narrative rather severely. Really? Aren’t mammoths supposed to be, well… mammoth? The griffins and manticores don’t help much, either… When one evokes mythological creatures, one has an obligation, I believe, to remain true to the accepted mythological nature of the beast. The Irish Rovers notwithstanding, no unicorns appear in Genesis 5-7; nor do unicorns have the usual characteristic of being called by believers across time and space, of flickering in and out of existence. In L’Engle’s version, this characteristic is used as a method of travel, and of escape when Sandy is kidnapped by a corrupt family of the tribe; it also enables Sandy and Dennys’s return. While their father’s experiment with the tesseract—the original Wrinkle in Time—is the cause of their initial time travel “mistake,” the return is orchestrated by the Seraphim, who travel to our century and “call” two unicorns with Sandy and Dennys on their backs. It all feels far too authorially manipulated; the Seraphim are almost-omniscient creatures, who repeatedly intervene on behalf of Sandy and Dennys and their new friends, and protecting the young girl Yalith from the lustful Nephilim. Both Sandy and Dennys fall in youthful love with Yalith, who returns their affections equally to both boys. This situation is sufficiently awkward, as Dennys comments: “If we had been older, it would have been very complicated, wouldn’t it?” (296). Another little snag lies in L’Engle’s need to adhere to the Biblical story: remember that only Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their four wives, were saved; the rest of humanity drowned.  These two problems are dealt with by having “El” (God) “take Yalith up” in the same way that Enoch was taken in the Bible: “Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him [alive to His abode]” (Gn 5:24); similarly, Yalith “was to be taken up, like her forebear Enoch” (297). Highly convenient.

Overall, while L’Engle’s story-telling abilities are sound, and her characters consistent and engaging, the incongruous combination of narrative elements in Many Waters—as in A Wind in the Door—rendered the story itself less than delightful. I have promised to read two more L’Engle novels—favourites of a friend, Dragons in the Waters (1976) and The Arm of the Starfish (1965)—but after that, I believe I will devote my time to more rewarding stories and worlds.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), by Madeline L’Engle

A Wrinkle in Time (1962) is one of the classics of YA science fiction; in A Wind in the Door (1973), science fiction sits uncomfortably beside fantasy, injected with a hint of mysticism; A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978) has abandoned the science fiction genre entirely. It has “preciously little science in it” but blends fantasy and mysticism with the political fears of the moment: nuclear war. Like the source of the preceding quotation,¹ A Swiftly Tilting Planet is better for not subscribing even loosely to the parameters of the science fiction genre.

In this fantastic tale, 15-year-old Charles Wallace travels not through space but through time, on a wind-riding unicorn–pegasus named Gaudior (“more joyful” [46]). A pregnant Meg (now O’Keefe) lies in her attic bed (yes, again it is “a dark and stormy night”) and accompanies him through “kything,” communicating mind-to-mind.  She is strengthened in her abilities by a recently arrived replacement for the ever-vigilant Fortinbras: a stray dog, whom Charles Wallace tells us is named Ananda (“that joy in existence without which the universe will fall apart and collapse” [38]). As in A Wind in the Door, when we learn that Louise the Larger (the pet garden snake) is actually a “Teacher” in the greater universal community, animals have a strong mystical connection, used to support the Murry children in their attempts to save the world; also like A Wind in the Door, the narrative clues are not particularly subtle. But at least A Swiftly Tilting Planet has an interesting story to tell, and a mystery to solve, that keep the reader guessing well into the plot.

The pervasive theme in this novel is the archetype most often represented by Cain and Abel. L’Engle takes for the basis of her version the Welsh legend of Madoc, published in epic poetic form by Robert Southey in 1805. The original had only the youngest Welsh prince, Madoc, fleeing internecine strife to found a new, more peaceful life in America (although in Southey’s poem he ends up waging religious war on the Aztecs, and converting them, and ultimately founding a colony). In L’Engle’s version, he and an older brother, Gwydyr, cross the waters: like Cain and Abel, one is peace-loving, one is full of a greed for power. Charles Wallace, sent to alter history and thus prevent nuclear annihilation at the hands of a South American despot, enters “Within” the peaceful Madoc, as he does a number of subsequent characters, and begins to learn the long and complicated history of Madoc’s and Gwydyr’s decedents, intertwined as it is with the history of Calvin O’Keefe’s forebears as well as the Southey poem. And yes, the plot is presented in as complicated a manner as this sounds, even moreso.  Young readers will actually enjoy the historical puzzle L’Engle builds for us, even if to the adult reader it seems somewhat contrived.  Charles Wallace visits some interesting moments in history: prehistoric Native America, first contact with the indigenous peoples, the Salem witch trials, the Civil War. These are combined with more recent fictional moments that will similarly interest readers: namely, the early life of Calvin’s seemingly unimportant and ineffectual mother. There is “more to her than meets the eye” (24, 278), certainly, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet shows characters and readers alike how wrong it is to judge a person without knowing the full story.

Where A Wind in the Door felt uncertain of its genre, and did not really beg continuation, A Swiftly Tilting Planet brings the reader back into the Murry–O’Keefe families’ lives and leaves us wondering where their stories will go from here.

___________

¹   James DeMille, A Strange Manuscript Found in Copper Cylinder, 1888 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2000) 226.

Amos Daragon: The Mask Wearer (2003; 2011), by Bryan Perro

Translated by Y. Maudet.

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 16.5.

Amos Daragon

I really wish I had the original French (Amos Daragon, Porteur de Masques, 2003) in hand while reading this novel.  My initial reaction was not highly positive, only because the language seems so stilted and “See Spot run.” But the second one gets past what I infer to be a problem with the translation, one can understand why Perro’s series is so popular and has been translated into so many languages.  Like J. K. Rowling (although not as artfully), Perro has taken a number of creatures and ideas from disparate myths and legends and fairy tales and stirred them into a witch’s brew of adventure: a species of almost-humans who can change into animals; gorgons, basilisks, mermaids, and fairies; the Indian naga; the Egyptian snake-god, Seth… all have a place in Perro’s fantasy world.
In The Mask Wearer, the first of twelve books in the series, we meet the clever trickster Amos Daragon, who uses his wiles to escape his family’s poverty and set out on a quest to restore a magical stone to the Queen of the Fairies.  En route, of course, he makes unlikely friends and is plagued by numerous evils.  While this sounds perhaps clichéd, the characters are interesting and the mixture of various folktale elements unique.  The story begins awkwardly, almost as if it were written for very young readers, but soon picks up the pace and canters on towards a very well-structured conclusion.