A Quest for Freedom

Mossflower by Brian Jaques
Reviewed by Jo Budzilowicz



Mossflower, by Brian Jaques is a book filled with action that is real enough to believe but not too gruesome. The use of animals as the main characters that think and talk as people is very believable and strengthens the book. When the characters and places are fable, it makes seemingly unrealistic events more believable. Although many people die in this story, it is an important death that contributes to the story, not just an opportunity to kill. For example, when one of the warriors brother is killed it changes him, he is now filled with anger and fights not only a battle for Mossflower, but for revenge. The characters in the book have many different sides and aren't simply two dimensional. They all have strengths and weaknesses, which also makes the book more believable. Although it is sometimes hard to remember what is happening because the book is long and has so many different stories, Jaques portrays the story in such a way that it doesn't matter. The book is divided up so that you take in one thing at a time in small doses so that in the end everything comes together and the whole picture is clear.

Martin the Warrior, is a "sturdily built young mouse with quick dark eyes" (p.5) and is strong- hearted and confident. As you follow him on an epic journey, you see how Martin matures from a stubborn young mouse into a leader and a true warrior. Martin sets out with Gonff the "prince of mouse thieves" and a "ducker and weaver of life, a marvelous mimic, ballad writer, singer and lock pick, and a very jovial with it all" (p. 10) and Dinny a strong, young mole to find Boar, a badger warrior at the fire breathing mountain of Salamandastron. Convinced Boar is the answer to freeing Mossflower woods from the clutches of the evil wildcat, Queen Tsarmina, Martin follows a poem as a map across deserts, caves and rivers to find the mountain. Back at Mossflower woods, wooodlanders fight to keep from being enslaved by Tsarmina who rules the land and a fortress called Kotir "a forbidding place, made mean by poverty." (p.5)

As you go from story to story you find Martin and company sailing down a waterfall, captured by a band of toads and thrown into a pit to keep a giant eel happy, and attacked by a giant crab while on their quest for Boar the Fighter. At Mossflower, Tsarmina keeps the woodlanders, Skipper and his crew of otters, and Lady Amber and her squirrel archers busy as she tries relentlessly to enslave them. At the end of Martin's journey, he is a true warrior who can fight the last battle which will ensure the woodlander's freedom or death.



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