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Book ReviewsWise Child |
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Book: Wise Child
Written by: Monica Furlong |
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5
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This book was just awesome-
Rating:
5 / 5
I loved it! I especially liked how the character Juniper was someone that was easy to look up to and like.There are so many novels when that just isn't true about the main character. It was also so imaginiative and fantastic,but in a gentle way,it eased you into the story first.
A lesson for all
Rating:
4 / 5
This is a very well told story. Wise Child, the daughter of Finbar, a man of the sea, and Maeve the Fair, who abandoned her when she was an infant, is orphaned when her grandmother passes away. When the villagers are asked to take her in, none have room. This is when Juniper steps forward and offers her home, much to the chagrin of Fillan, the village priest, who believes her to be a pagan witch, while he believes there is only room for one religion in the world.
The story tells of the powerful bond that is forged between Wise Child and Juniper, and how that bond is tested many times, especially when Maeve shows up asking Wise Child to come away with her, to live the life of a princess. As well, the tail describes the ways of the Doran and the difference between dark and white "magic".
And yes, there is a lesson to be learned. That FEAR and IGNORANCE can be very powerful tools, even when you can't truly believe in the end result.
As a volunteer reader for a radio reading service, I spend a lot of time reading YA and Juvenile literature. Though I cannot do this novel justice (The main characters being female), I am still recommending it be recorded for our listeners, because everyone can learn something from this.
Primal, Elegant Feminism
Rating:
5 / 5
I picked up Wise Child in my elementary school library when I was 9 years old, entirely out of facination with the drawing. Looking back, the beautiful story inside changed me hugely. I was living with my little sister and newly divorced, single mother at the time, and though I was unaware of it at the time, the story of Juniper raising Wise Child in her mysterious and magical house ended up giving me my first taste of a mystical, powerful, vibrant, and intellegent feminism, something I wasn't accustomed to at the time (as much as I loved disney movies full of helpless heronies). Monica Furlong presented both a woman and a girl entering adolescence with an organic, strong, and natural beauty, which was something I could identify with. In retrospect, the scenes I imagined as I read Wise Child under the covers with a flashlight long after I'd been put to bed have remained a flavorful part of my subconscious imagery, and have undoubtedly infulenced my personal aesthetic. In Wise Child, beauty isn't fabricated, but nurtured as a strange and wild quality from within that borders from time to time on the terrifying. I thoroughly recommend this book to girls ages 8 and up. And maybe some extra flashlight batteries too.
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