Book 32: "The Golden Acorn" by Catherine Cooper
Saturday, July 23rd, 2011 22:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeJack stood very still and listened. There wasn’t a sound apart from a slight rustling of leaves. For the third time today he could hear his own heart pounding. He didn’t like being alone in the lane. He got the feeling he was being watched. Next time he went for a walk he’d go with Grandad.
He was about to turn and run when he saw a gleam of light; something underneath the hedge glinted in the sunlight. He bent down and pulled the grass apart. A small shiny object lay on the ground. Where had it come from? Jack looked around before he picked it up and examined it more closely. It was a golden acorn; not quite like any acorn he’d ever seen before. It was beautifully carved, big and heavy and felt warm in his hand. Jack put it in his pocket then searched around to see if he could find any more.
When Jack Brenin comes to live with his grandfather he is drawn into a magical quest to save the hamadryad of Glasruhen Forest and re-open a lost gateway to Annwn (the Celtic Otherworld) who have been trapped in this world since the closing of the gateways between the worlds. His grandfather's neighbour Nora turns out to be a lot older than she looks and needs Jack's help to retrieve some cauldron plates from Roman Britain, and whenever he isn't at school Jack is learning the magical skills he will need to take part in a solstice ritual to pass through the time portal and return to the time when the Romans were burning the sacred groves of the Druids.
The story is quite convoluted and it took me longer to read than I expected for a children's book, but I liked the Night Guard of rats, Jennet the water sprite and the other creatures who helped and hindered However, my favourite character, and probably most readers' favourite, is Camellin the raven. At first he just seems to be a rather grumpy and extremely greedy bird, but it turns out that there is a lot more to him than that.
The book starts with a map showing the main characters' houses and the surrounding forests, which I always like to see, and there are cute illustrated chapter headings, showing what Camellin gets up to in each chapter, with my favourite showing two ravens asleep in cat baskets with their legs in the air).
He was about to turn and run when he saw a gleam of light; something underneath the hedge glinted in the sunlight. He bent down and pulled the grass apart. A small shiny object lay on the ground. Where had it come from? Jack looked around before he picked it up and examined it more closely. It was a golden acorn; not quite like any acorn he’d ever seen before. It was beautifully carved, big and heavy and felt warm in his hand. Jack put it in his pocket then searched around to see if he could find any more.
When Jack Brenin comes to live with his grandfather he is drawn into a magical quest to save the hamadryad of Glasruhen Forest and re-open a lost gateway to Annwn (the Celtic Otherworld) who have been trapped in this world since the closing of the gateways between the worlds. His grandfather's neighbour Nora turns out to be a lot older than she looks and needs Jack's help to retrieve some cauldron plates from Roman Britain, and whenever he isn't at school Jack is learning the magical skills he will need to take part in a solstice ritual to pass through the time portal and return to the time when the Romans were burning the sacred groves of the Druids.
The story is quite convoluted and it took me longer to read than I expected for a children's book, but I liked the Night Guard of rats, Jennet the water sprite and the other creatures who helped and hindered However, my favourite character, and probably most readers' favourite, is Camellin the raven. At first he just seems to be a rather grumpy and extremely greedy bird, but it turns out that there is a lot more to him than that.
The book starts with a map showing the main characters' houses and the surrounding forests, which I always like to see, and there are cute illustrated chapter headings, showing what Camellin gets up to in each chapter, with my favourite showing two ravens asleep in cat baskets with their legs in the air).
