It is the summer of the Golden Plain and within the mellow stone walls of Redwall Abbey our young hero Mattimeo is restless and forever getting into trouble. For Matti has a grand tradition to uphold and he feels the weight of it keenly on his young shoulders and often fights against it.

His father’s shoes are awfully big ones to fill, but one day, fill them he must. For his father is Matthias, Warrior of Redwall, saviour and champion of all righteous creatures, and one day Matti will be his successor.

Redwall Abbey, nestling in the heart of pastoral, perfect Mossflower County, is an oasis of peace and prosperity, where a small community labours industriously to provide welcome, succour and sustenance for any woodlander or traveller who needs it.

But horror is coming to Redwall in the shape of Slagar the Cruel and his evil band of assassins. Slagar wants to destroy Redwall in the name of revenge, and he has an old score to settle with Matthias the Warrior. Failure has taught him he cannot take Redwall by force, for Matthias is a powerful figurehead who is able to galvanise the normally peaceful inhabitants to defend their home with great spirit. Slagar hatches a cowardly plan to draw Matthias away from the Abbey by kidnapping the children of the community – including Mattimeo – and laying siege to the Abbey.

To make matters worse, the community faces a further assault from the airborne armies of General Ironbeak, who force their way into the Abbey’s upper levels and threaten the community below.

And so the Abbey is threatened from without and within, and has to fight the dual threats without the support of its loyal protector, who sets off on a quest to find the young ones.

Meanwhile, on a brutal enforced march through the wilderness to be sold as slaves, Matti realises that a warrior’s heart truly beats in his breast and he learns to face his destiny and become protector of the small band of dispossessed youngsters.

Ohh, and did I mention that Matthias and Mattimeo are warrior mice, General Ironbeak’s army is a bunch of mangy crows, Slagar the Horrible is a fox, and the other inhabitants of Redwall are badgers, hedgehogs, sparrows, shrews, hares, moles and squirrels?

The third book in the anthropomorphic Redwall trilogy, Mattimeo is a truly glorious read. Jacques creates wonderfully sympathetic characters, and some of the most wicked villains to ever skulk upon the face of the earth.

There is excitement, action, the ancient battle of good against evil and endless buckles being swashed. Jacques obviously loves Mossflower county and the Abbey, because he writes about it with such passion that the landscape becomes a character in itself. He obviously knows this land intimately in his mind, because it is described with loving attention to detail, which makes it tangible to the reader.

Jacques writes supposedly for children, but these books are far too good to be kept just for the kids. Adults should read them too. The language is fairly advanced and these are weighty books with over 400 pages of close-spaced text, so I wouldn’t recommend them for children younger than about twelve, unless they are very articulate and well read. Of course you could always read them aloud in small chunks to younger children. There are endless possibilities for exciting sound effects and myriad funny voices. I often read chapters out loud to my six-year-old and it is wonderful to see her sitting cross-legged in bed, eyes wide and shining with excitement, as the story unfolds. These reading sessions always end with excited chats about what might happen next, and lots of begging for “just one more page”! Isn’t that just how books should engage kids?

These are the kinds of books that give young people a passion for reading, I think. They certainly had that effect on me and as a consequence I have re-read them many times in my adult life. I can never stay away from Redwall for long and reading the books again is always like coming home. And Jacques continues to write them, thankfully.

The basic tenets of the order of Redwall are a good lesson for children (love thy neighbour, live in peace, all races living together in happiness, a truly communal community pitching in to help one another) if you don’t mind the subtle religious undertones. The religious aspect, however, is never overstated and Redwall seems to work more as a commune than a religious order. As an Atheist mum of an undecided child, I appreciate that Jacques seems to show “humanity” rather than “Christianity”. It is interesting that he has chosen this highly evolved community of animals to illustrate how human beings really should treat one another.

I don’t want to give you the impression that the books are in any way preachy, because that would be wrong. They simply show, by the actions of the animals, a rather nice way to live that we could all learn a lesson from.

One other thing I should mention is that Jacques tends to be a bit “George Lucas” with his Redwall books – in other words, the order in which they are written does not mirror the history of Redwall itself. He tends to jump around the timeline (just like Star Wars) and this can be confusing. You can read the books either in the order they were written, or in historical order. By reading them in historical order, you are able to follow the story of the founding of the Abbey and the lives of its generations of inhabitants.

Full bibliographies, in both written and historical order, are available from the website, www.redwall.org, which also has a wealth of other fascinating information about the books and the author, future releases, tours and book signings.

Mattimeo is published by Red Fox (ISBN 0099675404) and is available from just 57 cents from www.amazon.com. That isn’t a lot to pay to help teach your kids to love books, is it?

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Mattimeo (Redwall, Book 3)   from Amazon.Com!

Created Aug 24, 2005 at 4:25pm • Submit your own review...