Redwall

Author: Brian Jacques
Published: 1986

An evil warlord threatens the peace of many species. A hero goes on a quest to bring aid. The defenders heroically battle for their lives until the hero can arrive.

Lord of the Rings? No, it's Redwall! Where mice are men and rats have short lived story arcs.

The author indulges quite a bit of anthropomorphic teasing. I don't know English accents well enough to decipher who the moles are making fun of. The hare is clearly a WWII British fighter pilot. Things get a bit dicey with the warlike Sparra dialect. The double-crossing foxes are also borderline. And the band of roving, arguing shrews? Let's not even go there.

I read this aloud with my daughter, a good exercise as it had an advanced vocabulary, much of which I had to explain to her. It also had prose that, while perhaps not purple, was at least violet. Mr. Jacques likes his adverbs and adjectives. We had to skip over a few of the more detailed murder scenes.

Not a bad book. I'd have to be convinced of the greatness of the sequels to continue reading the series.