Forest of Wonders by Linda Sue Park
Something Completely Different! A Book for Grades 4-8
This is the first book of the Wing and Claw series; a colleague will be talking about books for this grade range
during a presentation and I figured I’d expand my reading horizons and give one
a shot. I don’t think I’ve read anything
for this age group since I was a part of it!
Twelve year old Raffa is an apprentice apothecary with a natural
gift for creating poultices and infusions.
When he finds a badly injured bat by his house he asks his parents if he
can do his best to heal it. They agree,
and Raffa goes into the woods with his best friend and cousin to find a vine
rumored to have amazing healing properties which hasn’t been seen in
decades. So begins the journey.
This book has a little bit of everything. A child prodigy, jealousy, revenge, good
intentions twisted, rich people, poor people, talking animals, trustworthy
adults, non-trustworthy adults, and because of the audience a bunch of kids
getting in trouble way over their heads setting out to save, not quite the
world in this case, but the animal kingdom.
Kids will like that the story is about peers, adults reading it will like
that while the main character’s parents are portrayed as staid and
unadventurous Raffa begins to appreciate them when they are not around.
My only complaint is the ending!
I feel that a book that is part of a series should still have an
ending. This was more of a “to be
continued” like you have in two part television series but the sequel is
nowhere in sight. A bombshell is dropped
on the characters (actually more than one) and part of the group is separated from
the rest, oh and they are being pursued into the wilderness and BAM! the book
ends. Not cool Linda Sue, not cool.
