When I was a kid I used to read stories about children who became involved with magic, often involving King Arthur or Merlin; stories such as The Dark Is Rising, a series by Susan Cooper, or Alan Garner's Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath. This book was a refreshing take on the genre, starring a delightfully American teenager who is wonderfully outraged at being asked to move from the good old U S of A to rural Wales. Naturally she is initially reluctant to accept the Call when the locals all tell her she is the One to fulfil the local legends. The first half of the book was a delight. The second half was more or less a standard example of the genre: Catlin swiftly lost her Americanness and the magical adventures became standard Harry Potter fare. I was hoping for some challenges - the heroine and her male friend are teenagers - but this was no Owl Service.
But there were some memorable moments:
- "It might turn on you one night, and dismantle you, bone from bone, sinew from sinew, until your blood runs like wine on the earth." (Prologue: The Legends: The Earthstone)
- "Dawn slid sideways between the trees of the grove" (Prologue: The Legends: The Earthstone)
- "A musical saw played by a real whizz sounds kind of like someone screaming in tune. A musical saw played by my Mom sounded like someone being tortured." (C 2)
- "Why do Moms get in such a snit about tidyness: I know where everything is, and with the world in such a mess, why should my bedroom be the exception?" (C 6)
- "I would rather untangle the knots in my friendships than wait for then to get so big they, like, strangle it, you know." (C 11)
- "Mom would have had a triple-dip conniption with extra nuts if she'd seen me!" (C 15)
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