Wildwood by Colin Meloy. Illustrated by Carson Ellis {Goodreads}
Published by Balzer + Bray in 2011
Hardback edition; 560 pages
Wildwood, the first instalment in the Wildwood
Chronicles, starts when Mac, Prue’s brother, is kidnapped by crows and taken to
Wildwood. Prue is determined to go and rescue him even though her parents
always tell her to stay away from the woods. Curtis, a class mate, follows her
and both of them find themselves in this magical world, trying to save not only
Prue’s baby brother but also the entirety of Wildwood from an evil Queen.
Sounds
good, right? Well, I’ll be honest and say this wasn’t very original. The story,
I mean. From the moment I read the first page until I turned the last page over
there was only one thing in my head: Narnia. The world Colin Meloy has created
screamed Narnia to me and throughout the whole book I couldn’t stop myself from
doing comparisons and that is something I truly don’t like to do but I couldn’t
help it. The Wildwood world was too similar to Narnia. That’s not to say the
story is not well-written and fun, it actually is; it touches on the power of
friendship and family and of course focuses on the ever-recurrent theme of Good
vs Evil. Carson Ellis’s illustrations are probably my favourite thing about the
novel, they are scatter all throughout the book and are very beautiful.
Reading
children’s books is always interesting. You go into it with an “adult” mind-set
and sometimes things don’t work. For me, Wildwood
is an okay read, it’s something you pick up for fun, it’s not a complicated
read. I mean, it’s middle-grade, it’s not supposed to be complicated. However,
this book was not written for adults; it was written for children. That doesn’t
necessarily mean adults can’t read it but it is something I need to take into
account. A fantasy world full of talking animals, bandits, a corrupted
government and an evil Queen – I can totally see why this story is something
kids will love.