Stars: ★★★★★ (Study This Book)

Premise

This is a series of four books set in the fantasy land of Aerwiar. They walk through the transformation of three young children from a family who tends a farm in a small town to heroes thrust into the middle of a battle to save their entire world. Each child must face his or her own challenges, battles, and victories until they are able to reunite and fight united once more. The books explore suffering the consequences of your own decisions and the decisions of others, the impacts of jealousy and envy on relationships, how secrets can doom a family to untold suffering, and the triumph that can follow self-sacrifice.

Loved

1. Suspicion of “the Other” is devastating
   Throughout the novels, there are characters who do not look or act like all the people around them. These characters are maligned, often with devastating consequences. One is driven from his home; one is caged for years, and another is killed. In the final epic battle, which has plenty of pay off for the four books of build up, the creatures from around Aerwiar unite to defend their homes and their lives, demonstrating that their universal mistrust until that point had only damaged relationships that could have thrived.
   

2. All the characters have deep, real emotions
   From the beginning of the books, the oldest child Janner struggles with resentment toward his younger siblings because he has to look after them. This battle against his bitterness rages internally throughout all the novels. There are times when he conquers it and times when he lets it overpower him. His struggle was an excellent opportunity to talk about taking care of one another.
   
   Tink is one of the characters who must fight his battles internally and externally because his failure is visible to everyone. It is a cloak of shame and regret that cannot be hidden. Much like Janner, we see him sometimes overcome and other times succumb to the monster he can be.
   
   Many of the characters go through the transformations, triumphs, challenges, and defeats. We walk through all these hardships and victories with them, and even though the books seem long, especially the last one, they were so easy to get through because we loved the characters so much.

3. You don’t always know which characters to trust
   One of my favorite storylines in books in learning that some of the characters that you have come to know are actually the opposite of whom you believed them to be. This happens multiple times throughout the series. There are a few that are particularly heart wrenching, and one that actually led directly to the conflict of the story. It’s conflicting for the reader as you go back and forth as to whether this or that person is loyal or about to betray the entire Wingfeather family.
   

Didn’t Love

There are multiple character deaths throughout the novels. There is one in particular that is emotionally devastating. I was reading these pages to the kids, and they were making fun of me because I was crying while I was trying to read them. It has become a running joke in our family now that I cry while I read to the kids, but it is important to know that not all the story lines have a happy ending, especially if you are reading these with younger children.

Lessons Learned

• I learned how much I love listening to audiobooks of novels. The author reads these audiobooks, and listening to him read them helped with pronunciation and differentiated accents. We would all gather in the living room, and Finiasi would lay down with a blanket to take a nap. The older two kids would find a quiet activity, and I would usually pull out my crochet or my drawing pad. We always listened for at least 30 minutes, but if Ana Lia was deeply involved in a craft, there were days where I left the story on for more than two hours. This was much too long for Eliam, but Ana Lia and I worked alongside one another and enjoyed the story together.
• Age recommendations are particularly flexible. When Ana Lia was in kindergarten, our educational specialist believed she was too young to read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She undoubtedly missed much of the nuance at five years old, but she loved the characters. Similarly, these books are recommended for children 9-13, and some of the themes were dark, especially for my five year old. But it opened doors for many conversations. My father-in-law passed away while we were in the middle of the series, and these conversations helped with processing some of that grief.
• I am grateful for another series that the kids and I will be able to revisit over the years. This will be much like the Chronicles of Narnia or the Lord of the Rings that we reread multiple times. There is a TV show in production, so that will likely enhance our love of it even more, much like the Lord of the Rings movies.