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Summary: Waiting for the next Harry Potter book? Read this!
Review: Those readers who love intricate fantasy worlds and complicatedplots, with rollicking good action, will enjoy this and any of theseveral "Redwall" books by Brian Jacques. To describe the main storyline sounds almost silly. Mice and other woodland creatures living in an abbey must protect themselves from the evil creatures, usually weasels and ferrets, who would take over their riches. The characters are richly drawn, and the action is at times intense. Sometimes a character dies, sometimes a character allows the bent for revenge to transform them into less than good--just like in real life. Brian Jacques creates intricate plots and subplots, but always keeps the main action moving forward. He delights readers with his dialects and language variants of some of the creatures, most noteably the moles and sparrows. The peculiar speech of these characters is a challenge to anyone who reads this aloud, but my kids, who are now 10 and 14, can't get enough of these books for family reading time. If you haven't discovered the world of Redwall, it's time you did!
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Summary: Redwall vis-a-vis Harry Potter
Review: While waiting for the latest (4th) edition in the Harry Potter saga, I started reading Redwall to my 6 year old at bed time. I would highly recommend it! While I don't think this story is quite as imaginative & spectacular as those penned by Rowland, Jacques still writes a compelling tale. His command of English prose is formidable, and his plot line is very tight and well-developed. In my opinion, he also does a better job of character development than Rowland does in the Harry Potter series too. Another plus, is that the story actually extolls some good moral virtues. So while it's definitely not Harry Potter it is still an excellent story, and one that I highly recommend. My son loved it, and truth be known, so did I! If the proof is in the pudding, then know that we liked it enough to purchase the next few books in the series, and my son is already mentioning that he wants to pick up with those when we finish with "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".
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Summary: A great adventure book for all ages!
Review: Redwall is a great story of a young mouse that dreams of doing more. He gets his chance for bravery when his peaceful Abbey is attacked by an evil band of sea rats. This book has well described action, and strategy, well-developed characters, and mind-boggling puzzles. It has you on the edge of your seat thought many of Matthias's adventures. A great all around book and a great read for 3rd and 4th graders first big novel and for thoughs the people young at heart anytime. I also recommend the other Redwall books, like Mossflower and Martin the Warrior
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Summary: A classic!
Review: I have been reading this book since it was written when I was in fourth grade. I am now 25 and the story still makes me laugh out loud, cry at the end, and neglect household chores. I have three copies, two of which are no longer readable because they have been used so many times by so many people. An absolute masterpiece!
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Summary: Incredible Read!
Review: Though a little slow in the beginning, the first published book of the Redwall series rules. It's a wonderful tale about different heroes going on seperate, exciting journeys for the sake of their lovely home: Redwall Abbey. Me, (a 13 year old girl,) my mother, and my 11 year old brother have read Redwall - we all loved it. For anyone who wants it all: adventure, love, serious times and funny ones, this book's for you. That is what's so appealing about the book: the wonderful mix and balance and flow Brian Jacques puts in. Even though quite a few of the Redwall readers can't pronounce the author's last name (me!) the interior of the book has the word usage for practically anyone above grade 4, yet thick enough to please any adult. The characters in the amazing tale of Redwall are so well developed they capture our hearts. We all love Jess Squirrel, Silent Sam (who eventually does speak,) Matthias, Mathusalah, & Constance, just to name a few of the hundreds at the strong yet caring home of the Abbey. If they weren't evil, then Asmodeussss (creepy), the Sparra warriors (evil- well, most of the time,) and especially Cluny (just plain mean,) would probably steal our hearts as well. I recomend this book and the rest of the series to any reader anywhere. In the end, I have just one question for Mr. Jacques: how does he come up with the millions of names?
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Summary: This is the greatest!
Review: I want to tell you there is no other book like this one.Brian did a very good job of making animal characters seem more like human characters.I mean as I am reading this I stop and see these are animals he is writing about and I am a amazed.This a deffinate page turner.It will sweep you up as you meet this young soon to be a Redwall warrior Matthias.You hve to read this and many other Redwall books.
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Summary: Charming
Review: This is an adult's review of Redwall, a medieval monastic fantasy world that omits humans entirely in favour of wild-animal characters: Food and some habits are animal (well...mice drinking cow milk?), all the rest is "human," but less biting than Orwell's Animal Farm (I don't detect a political subtext, although the initial stereotyping will attract the gender police unless they read the whole book). This is childrens' stories in animal form, rather than Aesop's boring fables or something more gut-animal like Adams' Watership Down (where the conflict is also between individuals rather than whole species, as here). Jacques writing is lovely, incorporating ground-level animal perspectives and a child's view of humans; fun to read aloud in "animal voices" (particularly if you can do Cockney and plummy English). The story is exciting and rapid, the characters wholly good or evil but well-differentiated among themselves. The violence in this first story is almost light-hearted, in the heroic vein, and the evil rats almost incompetent in their rabid hostility, but that snake Asmodeusssss is a true nightmare (shiver). I only wish Gary Chalk had done more drawings. (It takes a while to figure out in what order to read the many books in this series, newly released in paperback with new illustrations.)
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Summary: A Brilliant and Captivating tale...
Review: "Redwall" is a thrilling piece of storytelling that has captured the hearts of fans around the world with its heart-pounding adventure, lovable characters and "hare"-breadth escapes. The amazing descriptive elements help bring the written word to life. Fantasy has rarely had the warm, inviting feel of the Redwall series, especially this fabulous first enstallment. Its mystery,intrigue, and conundrums to unravel, as well as its twists of fate, assure that it will go down as a classic. Matthias is a young novice mouse of the Redwall order, a rather clumsy creature, who has left every mouse in the Abbey wondering what his destiny will be. After the celebration of their Abbot's Golden Jubilee, a large horde of rats is discovered roaming the land in a horse-cart, lead by an usually large rat with one eye... The characters in Redwall are all animals, such as those native to England (rats, mice, badgers, squirrels, foxes, and so on). The distinction between the protagonists and antagonists, and the differences in each creature's "personality" (not to mention their differences in accents and dialects!) add to the enjoyment. "Redwall" is uniquely fullfilling. This is the beginning of a long journey enjoyed by people of all ages. Redwall has grown to be one of my personal favorites, as have all the Redwall books, and will surely become a favorite of any enthusiastic reader.
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Summary: This book is the Bomb!
Review: This book is great. Redwall has a cool plot and was written very well. It kept me reading up late into the night. You have got to read this this great, neat, well-written, suspense-full book. It is a must read.
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Summary: Grimmest Tale in the Redwall Series
Review: Of all of Brian Jacques's novels set in his critically acclaimed series, Redwall (can't underline or italicize--they don't have the option!) is perhaps the most bloodthirsty epic of the lot. Being his first, I can understand that, and in fact, I applaud it! I am a huge fan of Brian Lumley's Necroscope series (a more harrowing experience than you could imagine) and can appreciate the maturity with which Jacques has written in what many have lauded to be a "young person's" novel. Okay, I know the reality check has bounced, but let's think about this. I am 17 and have a verbal I. Q. that is almost off the rating scale (ask my guidance counselor if you don't believe me) and am considered by friend and foe alike to be at least twice as mature as the average teen. Why then, O Great Critic, am I reading this? The reason is simple--I have found a kindred spirit in Brian Jacques. When I was in the sixth grade and on the last day of school, a friend of mine approached me and asked me if I wanted a book. He said that he had not read the entire book cover-to-cover and was planning on throwing it away because he had found it while cleaning out our desks. Already well-known as a bookworm, I jumped all over the chance of a free book, never thinking about the real reason why he was going to pitch it. I read Redwall in less than a week. To me, the story line was so well written and the characters so vibrant and lifelike, I immediately flipped back to the first page and began anew. Of all the characters, I identified with Matthias the most (I still do). It seemed that every action he took in his roller-coaster ride to adulthood for one still so young, I would have done the same. After reading a second time and absorbing the epic final battle over and over again, I sat back and thought, and was suddenly overcome with grief that our reality was the one that existed, not the one described so perfectly by Jacques. I must have wept in my sleep for days, because I would wake up in the morning with tearstains on my pillow. Sometimes I still do, for how can I not grieve when my ideal world exists only in specially formulated dye on sheets of tree? Thank you, Sir Brian Jacques (you should be a knight) for opening my eyes and helping me find a will to carry on, in the hopes that the type of world described would one day be a dream no longer. Oh, and the reason my friend was going to throw this book away is startling: this novel had been stolen from a local bookstore, and yes I still have it.
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