Dear Kylie,
WOW! I finished this LONG book in three days. I simply could not put it down! It is a fantasy about a world of animals where the struggle for good and evil is ever present. The protagonist is female and so is the evil antagonist --something you don't see in many books. Usually, all the "good parts" are male characters. Not in "The Sight!" The recommended grades for this book is 7th-12th, however adults love this book too. Although you are a 6th grade student, you are also a G.T. student and therefore are definitely "old enough" for it. The novel is definitely what is called DARK --the trials, challenges, the evil of the antagonist are frightening at times, but the LIGHT, the love and goodness of the protagonist will warm your heart and show you the power of doing the right thing in the worst of times and the love of sacrificing what you want for others. The book combines fantasy, mythology, and prophecy, spinning them together to make the world this novel is set in something very different from any other read. After reading this book, you will love wolves and understand things about courage you never knew before. This was one of my very favorite anthropomorphic books I read. I will read this one again someday... Ms Hesse |
A BATTLE OF GOOD & EVIL
strong FEMALE characters!
In the icy shadow of an abandoned, mountain-top castle lives a pack of wolves, struggling to survive in a snowy, barren winter. A legend clings to their frozen home - a story of man and wolf, of power and of death. One dark night, they scent danger in the frozen wind - Morgra, a lone wolf cast out of her pack. Her howl travels through the night carrying a deadly secret. She has The Sight. Her eyes can see into the minds of other living things; her heart is eaten up with bitterness. Her power leads her to exact a terrible revenge on her own kind...One young wolf may be able to stop her: Larka, a white wolf whose eyes carry the same dark power, but whose heart is good...
As in his Fire Bringer, Clement-Davies's new fantasy novel features talking animals (Vargs, or wolves, instead of deer), a militant pack with a power-hungry leader, a prophecy involving a newborn that proves gifted (a white wolf who has the Sight, which can be used to see the future, heal and even control others) and the author creates imaginative mythologies. Prophecies speak of a marked one (this time it turns out to be a stolen human child) and the revelation of a secret. But readers may find the creative plotting here even more compelling than in the author's first novel—and the prophecy's meaning will keep them guessing. Larka, a white wolf, and her family are hunted, initially by Morgra, who strives to become the powerful Man Varg (also foretold in the prophecy); a rebel pack also hunts them (Slavka, its leader, seeks to destroy all that claim to have the Sight). After Larka loses members of her pack, she embarks on a solo journey and finds teachers who help her master the Sight, using it to heal and to prepare to face Morgra. Strong female characters also provide a refreshing change to the often male-dominated science-fiction/fantasy field. Above all, this is a story about stories: how they educate, enrich, and comfort, but also entrap. As much as the reader will learn about wolves, close attention will reveal even more about what it means to be human. A flawed but heartbreaking work of imaginative vision that shows what it means to sacrifice for others. .Ages 12-up.
THE PROPHECY
As a she-cub is whelped with a coat that is white,
And human child stolen to suckle the Sight
From a place where injustice was secretly done
Then the Marked One is here and a legend begun.
When Wolfbane is dreamt of with terror and dread,
And untamed are tamed, prepare for the dead.
For the Shape Changer's pact with the birds will come true,
When the blood of the Varg blends with Man's in the dew,
As the Searchers are tempted, who hunger and prowl
Down the Pathways of Death, by the summoning howl.
Then the truest of powers will be fleshed on the bone
And the Searchers tempt nature to prey on its own.
With blood at the altar, the Vision shall come
When the eye of the moon is as round as the sun.
In the citadel raised by the lords of before,
The Stone twins await-both the power and the law.
Then the past and the future shall finally show,
To the wounded, the secret the Lera must know.
And all shall be witness to that which will be,
In the mind of the Man Varg, then none shall be free.
And only a family both loving and true,
May conquer the evil, so ancient, so new.
As they fight to uncover what secrets they share
And see in their journey how painful is care.
Beware the Betrayer, whose meaning is strife,
For their faith shall be tried by the markers of life,
And who shall divine, in the dead of the night,
The lies from the truth, the darkness from light?
Like the cry of the scavenger, torn through the air
A courage is needed, as deep as despair.
As a she-cub is whelped with a coat that is white,
And human child stolen to suckle the Sight
From a place where injustice was secretly done
Then the Marked One is here and a legend begun.
When Wolfbane is dreamt of with terror and dread,
And untamed are tamed, prepare for the dead.
For the Shape Changer's pact with the birds will come true,
When the blood of the Varg blends with Man's in the dew,
As the Searchers are tempted, who hunger and prowl
Down the Pathways of Death, by the summoning howl.
Then the truest of powers will be fleshed on the bone
And the Searchers tempt nature to prey on its own.
With blood at the altar, the Vision shall come
When the eye of the moon is as round as the sun.
In the citadel raised by the lords of before,
The Stone twins await-both the power and the law.
Then the past and the future shall finally show,
To the wounded, the secret the Lera must know.
And all shall be witness to that which will be,
In the mind of the Man Varg, then none shall be free.
And only a family both loving and true,
May conquer the evil, so ancient, so new.
As they fight to uncover what secrets they share
And see in their journey how painful is care.
Beware the Betrayer, whose meaning is strife,
For their faith shall be tried by the markers of life,
And who shall divine, in the dead of the night,
The lies from the truth, the darkness from light?
Like the cry of the scavenger, torn through the air
A courage is needed, as deep as despair.
Book Terms
Lera - Wild Animal
Varg - Wolf
Putnar - Predator
Balkar - Night Hunters
Herla - Deer
Seer - Fortune teller
Grasht - Vampire
Fenris - Wolf God
Searchers - Ghosts of dead wolves
Dragga - Alpha Male
Drappa - Alpha Female
Sikla - Omega
Kerl - Lone wolf