Puffin Teenage Fiction

August 2003 $17.95

183p pb

ISBN: 0-14-031386-9

Master of the Grove is by Victor Kelleher and is a very well written novel. Master of the Grove is about ‘a boy’s quest for truth’ as it says on the back cover ‘and a sorcerer’s misuse of knowledge’. These two sentences pretty much sum it up.

The boy, whose name is Derin, is introduced waking up with a sore bump on his head and no recollection of who he is or where he is. He realizes his home has been destroyed from an attack.  He meets Marna, a woman who had nursed him from birth, and Craak, a crow that seems to take a liking to Derin and of course a couple of other characters. On his quest to find his father, he becomes caught in the middle of a war between the people of the plains and the mountain people. This conquest seems a bit like a Lord of the Rings.

I can’t tell you too much more or I’ll spoil it. The only problem with this book is that in some points it does become a little hard to understand, and on occasions, a bit boring. I give it 3 out of 5.

Josh, aged 13, Canberra, ACT