A review by skeleton_richard
Fire, Bed, and Bone by Henrietta Branford

1.0

Well, I'm depressed now.

The Peasants' Revolt and its aftermath from the viewpoint of a dog. Obviously since the narrator is a dog, she doesn't have much direct experience with the Revolt, though the main events are described by humans, so it focuses more on her life than the time period. I was hoping for more engagement with the history but it makes sense. What parts of the history do appear are integrated into the story very well, neither giving the narrator too much knowledge nor forgetting it's supposed to take place in 1381 and the years after. The references to real figures, like John Ball (who actually appears early on but is not named) are fun and contextualize it well.

I was reminded several times of [b:The Book of the Dun Cow|77721|The Book of the Dun Cow (Chauntecleer the Rooster, #1)|Walter Wangerin Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388271082s/77721.jpg|75067] series, especially the third book because much of it focuses on several wolves. Though mostly, like the Book of the Dun Cow, it's really violent, both in descriptions of hunting and the abuse of both humans and animals. It was yet another example of my favorite trope, "Making The Villain Super Obviously Evil Through Abuse." Yay. I'm not a prude and I'm not against violence in children's media, but I thought all the instances of animal abuse probably shouldn't be in a children's book. I do know that had I read this when I was a child, I would have been very upset by it.

"But Fyo," I hear you say, "Redwall is pretty violent and that's one of your favorite books from childhood." Redwall's violence is different though-- it's played out in an anthropromorphic medieval universe where much of the violence is combat-related and wasn't depictions of abuse that happens in the real world. I don't know why I'm so hung up on this but I am.

The ending is not as depressing as it could be, I'll give it that. The Peasants' Revolt did not end well and I did not expect this to be a happy book, but at least it avoided a total downer ending. After this and the last book I read, I need to read something happy.