Book reviews: ‘Mistmantle Chronicles’ and ‘Mouseheart’

With temperatures dropping and more and more entertainment options, let’s say homegrown, it’s a good time to catch up on that new material that matches your interests. Here are two of those lesser-known but deserving properties marketed to young people. For those of you who have been sold The NIMH Secret, red walland all the rest, at first glance.

Mistmantle Chronicles

The Mistmantle Chronicles by MI McAllister has jacket flaps that compare it to The wind in the willows and boat downalthough, as you can see from the cover of the first episode, there is much more red wall yen in this series. As they say, however, DO NOT judge a book by its cover, for the brave squirrel Urchin’s experiences on the titular island carry their own identity. It goes against the origins that speak to many favorite RPGs, as it evolves from its discovery on a deserted beach to its eventual fate in foiling a royal coup.

Companionship and species characteristics also play an important role in this, as in red wall, but there is also a noticeable amount of personification of reactive emotion and atmosphere, where fear and evil are given concrete outlines. Given my frequent mention of the property in the paragraph, you can round up the audience to which Mistmantle speak. Dig on it if you’re one of those audiences, because Miramax bought the film rights [albeit in 2004]and some kind of photo-game is probably not far away.

mouse heart

On the NIMH in front we have mouse heartfrom the keys of Lisa Fiedler and the art pens of Live at. There’s another unforeseen fate in action here, as protagonist Hopper escapes the mouse cage of a Brooklyn pet store and literally descends into the rat nation of Atlanta. It has the facade of a Camelot, as it has no shortage of secrets and mysteries to solve, such as the fate of the siblings Hopper escaped with, and why the many cats just outside the boundaries never attack.

The story sports intriguing twists as such, especially for a novel for young people, and an almost unusually thoughtful ending. There is no harm in his promotion; but mouseheart.com is no longer activethe series has gained enough traction to, to like Mistmantle, earn your own wiki. It’s another experience that’s high on everyone’s consideration list, if not on everyone’s fantasy radar.