Redwall is a fantasy series which centres around Redwall Abbey, founded by Martin the Warrior,
a mouse. All of the characters are animals, the bad ones vermin, the good ones generally the
cute and the fluffy.
Redwall is a place where creatures can live together happily - until the next baddy sets his
sights on Redwall or comes up with some other devious plot, when our heroes go off on a quest to
save the day.
Books :
The books are currently published at a rate of one a year, and the
paperbacks usually cost around £5 or £6. There are also the books on tape
read by the author and most good bookshops usually stock Redwall books.
The chronological order is as follows, but I recommend reading them in the
order they were published.
The Redwall series is generally very good. It combines has a good mix of
lots of elements - adventure, mystery and humour.
The different animals mostly have different accents - the hares speak
with posh, English upper class accents, moles have a "mummerset" ooh argh
kind of speach, with various other modes of speech for other animals.
This is quite fun, but I don't like the way some of the animals
personalities are all similar among some animals. This brings me to another
point. The characters are rather two dimensional and rarely develop, except
in between books. Having said that, I like the way how
recent books have taken place when the young characters of the previous
books have grown up adding a degree of continuity between the books.
Overall, the books are good, fun adventures which combine various elements
in an interesting way. The biggest flaws in my opinion is the repetiveness
of the plots and two dimensional characters, but asides that, they are fine.
Rating :
Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
The stories are aimed at, and suit, the eight to twelve year old range.
Older readers might like it, but I personally prefer stories without clear
cut black and white characters.
