The Feral Child

May 1, 2014
The dark side of faerie for a younger crowd.Thirteen-year-old Maddy, living with her grandparents in an Irish village since the deaths of her parents, is a horror of a child. She snarls at her grandparents, is rude to her cousins and is friendly only with Stephen, the toddler next door. It's no surprise she's snappish and violent when a boy accosts her on the grounds of a tourist-trap "faerie kingdom." Unsurprisingly, it's a poor idea to be rude to strangers on a faerie mound, however ostensibly artificial the mound may be. That very night, Maddy watches in terror as the strange boy-now long of ear and sharp of tooth-kidnaps Stephen. The need to rescue Stephen brings Maddy and two of her cousins into a twisted wintertime Tir na nOg, its Irish (and somewhat Narnia-inflected) character mixing with a mishmash of names from Norse, Roman, Blackfeet and Inuit myth and history-there's even a twiggy dryad with an Afro. At first, Maddy's behavior is hardly heroic; when her grandparents refuse to support her story about Stephen's abduction, she "sulk[s] and stomp[s] about the house all day," and her treatment of her cousins at the beginning of the quest is harshly critical. The fantasyland adventure brings the three children together in predictable-if-satisfying ways, however, and feral little Maddy becomes almost likable.A little incoherent-but enjoyable for all that. (glossary) (Fantasy. 9-11)

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May 1, 2014

Gr 5-7-Maddy, 13, resents living with her Irish grandparents in the tiny village of Blarney after her parents' deaths, and doesn't believe in spirits, despite her Granda's warnings to stay away from the nearby castle because it's haunted by Irish faeries. She changes her mind after encountering a creepy looking boy on the castle grounds. On All Hallows Eve, Maddy witnesses him kidnap Stephen, her cute three-year-old neighbor, leaving a changeling in his place. No one believes her so she decides to rescue Stephen herself. Along with her hated cousins Danny and Roisin, Maddy unwittingly find herself transported into the faerie realm through a magical mound on the castle grounds. The cousins engage in a series of dangerous battles with nasty faeries, elves, and other Celtic spirits in their search for the kidnapped child. Maddy is initially an unlikable character; her grief over her parents' deaths makes her lash out in anger at everyone around her. The glossary of Celtic words included at the end of the book defines the gorgeous male faerie Maddy meets with the statement that, "Maddy's too young to be interested in kissing boys (yuck!)," a condescending sentiment some middle-grade readers might quibble with. The plot is not particularly original, but the Irish setting and focus on Celtic mythology makes this debut worth reading.-Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

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