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A review by mat_tobin
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley Edge by Alan Garner
4.0
Although a little difficult to follow at times, this is nonetheless an great example of an adventure story whose pace and excitement beats many that are to be found in bookstores today. Alan is famed for stating that he thinks this, his first novel, of poor quality but I still think it stands head and shoulders above much literature for children out there. I can see his criticism when compared to [b:Red Shift|307220|Red Shift|Alan Garner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411940931s/307220.jpg|298190] or [b:The Owl Service|83829|The Owl Service |Alan Garner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328875903s/83829.jpg|80927] yet I still have a great love for this book mainly because of Garner's incredible grasp of language and his love of folk-lore (Cheshire folklore to be precise).
The Alderley Edge stories were brought to Alan Garner's attention by his own grandfather and I too remember stumbling across the story of the sleeping king when I read [b:Folklore, myths and legends of Britain|1761508|Folklore, myths and legends of Britain|Russell Ash|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1307240899s/1761508.jpg|1759480] as a child. My father owned a copy from Readers' Digest and I was both haunted and gripped by the stories inside. One of which was the very story which sits rooted at the centre of Garner's story.
Weirdstone is a chase, search, find and escape story similar, I suppose in its broadest sense, to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings but of a far quicker pace. Drawn into a world hidden beyond mortal man, Susan and Colin must return a magical stone, stolen from an ancestor, back to its original place or risk unleashing a great darkness upon the land.
What I think deserves celebrating in this book is not just the quality of the narrative in which, in pockets, we start to see Garner find his sharp, painfully precise choice of language which makes every sentence a joy to read but also how beautifully he evokes the Cheshire landscape. Considering I have never been, I could each knoll and cross, beaten hedgerow and moss-ridden path and these images reminded me so much of my own home in Conwy.
It would be considered a challenging text to share with children these days and yet, undoubtedly, the children would finish the book with a far better understanding of what great language can sound like (I think it's a great read-aloud text); how to evoke a real sense of place; how to pace a story and, perhaps most significantly, how to show readers that often what is not said is far more powerful than that which is.
The Alderley Edge stories were brought to Alan Garner's attention by his own grandfather and I too remember stumbling across the story of the sleeping king when I read [b:Folklore, myths and legends of Britain|1761508|Folklore, myths and legends of Britain|Russell Ash|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1307240899s/1761508.jpg|1759480] as a child. My father owned a copy from Readers' Digest and I was both haunted and gripped by the stories inside. One of which was the very story which sits rooted at the centre of Garner's story.
Weirdstone is a chase, search, find and escape story similar, I suppose in its broadest sense, to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings but of a far quicker pace. Drawn into a world hidden beyond mortal man, Susan and Colin must return a magical stone, stolen from an ancestor, back to its original place or risk unleashing a great darkness upon the land.
What I think deserves celebrating in this book is not just the quality of the narrative in which, in pockets, we start to see Garner find his sharp, painfully precise choice of language which makes every sentence a joy to read but also how beautifully he evokes the Cheshire landscape. Considering I have never been, I could each knoll and cross, beaten hedgerow and moss-ridden path and these images reminded me so much of my own home in Conwy.
It would be considered a challenging text to share with children these days and yet, undoubtedly, the children would finish the book with a far better understanding of what great language can sound like (I think it's a great read-aloud text); how to evoke a real sense of place; how to pace a story and, perhaps most significantly, how to show readers that often what is not said is far more powerful than that which is.