Redwall

Redwall by Brian Jacques is a fantasy series about a community of mice and their enemies, friends, life and death, and heroes and demons.  As with any good novel, there is our protagonist, Matthias, a young adventurous mouse living in Redwall Abbey with his fellow mice.  He is told early on in his life of the legendary sword of Martin the Warrior, which he must find to defeat the treacherous enemy, Cluny the Scourge, a large nasty rat!  Cluny has an extra-long tail that has a large barb at the end, which serves as a weapon to kill his enemies. As the story unfolds Matthias and his friends are in constant battle with Cluny until Matthias eventually is able to escape a near death battle with Cluny, find the sword, and yes kill the enemy!  While there is a great deal more in the story, including Matthias falling in love, meeting other animals who befriend him, fighting an army of rats, and losing a few friends during various skirmishes with Cluny, in the end it is a story of two distinct communities fighting for land and prestige.  This is a highly repeated story across history, but having mice and rats as the figures in the story.  I’d say it is an over-told story with a new twist, mice!  I wasn’t a fan of the book, maybe because I listened to it and it was read by British storytellers, so hard to catch the language during some segments of the story. Nothing really kept my interest in the book….  Sorry, just not that compelling or interesting to me.  I bet some young boys from middle school probably liked this one.  For me, I’ll take a pass on the rest of the books in this series.