5 comments about The Pictish Child: Tartan Magic, Book Two.

1. This wonderful story is one of three (so far) chronicling the adventures of three American children on vacation in Scotland, visiting their grandmother. They have come to realize that Scotland is filled with the magic of centuries, and the magic lives in 13-year-old Jennifer. However, there are others working magic in Scotland, and the children soon find themselves caught up in a magics both new and old!

   This is a great story, harkening back so clearly to ancient folk stories. I especially liked the traditional idea of women as possessors of ancient wisdom and power, beyond men and their science. This is a great book that I recommend to everyone with children, especially girls.




2. The Pictish Child
   By Jane Yolen
   Book reviewer: Hilde

   The Pictish Child is a very good book. It takes place in Scotland, and according to Gran "There's electric-and there's power. Americas got the electricity and Scotland has the power."
   Sixteen-year-old Jennifer, sixteen-year-old Peter and four-year-old Molly came from America to visit their Grandmother (who they call Gran) in Scotland. Where rain that in America would have canceled Baseball games, was (for Scotland) nothing more than a slight drizzle.
   While Da (Their Grandfather) is at work, Gran decides to visit Eventide Home and her friends there. "A young woman in a plaid skirt, white blouse, and blue cardigan sweater greeted them at the door. She had a foxlike face, long and sly looking. A metallic name badge identified her as Fiona, and she wore a pair of tiny silver scissors around her neck on a ribbon."
   Jennifer, Molly and Peter discover the past when a giant, gray mist comes to swallow up all of the past that had escaped when a mean sorcerer came through a small rip that he had created in time. They also found out how delicate the balance between good magic and evil magic is in this thrilling and scary-at-times book.
   I was really quite glad that there were no pictures in this book. For I think that pictures would have absolutely ruined it for me. Because I loved imagining what was happening and what the characters and things looked like.
   I think that the way Jane Yolen used words was really quite descriptive and powerful. Like she wielded a sword made of words with discipline and imagination that is a treasure in any book.
   I think that this book is an appropriate read-aloud book for children from five to seven. But to fully understand it I think that you have to be eight or over.




3. This is the second book in Jane Yolen's Tartan Magic trilogy, and picks up soon after the events in The Wizard's Map. In this book, Jennifer, Peter and Molly, three American children on vacation in Scotland are taken by their Scottish grandmother to visit three sisters living in a home for the elderly. But, there's strange magic at work here, and when an ancient amulet brings to life a Pictish child that died some 1000 years ago, the children are in for the ride of their lives. An ancient wrong needs to be set right, and a modern wrong needs to be averted.

   My thirteen-year-old daughter first introduced me to these books, and I must say that I enjoy them as much as she does. Jane Yolen does an excellent job of bring Scotland to life for the American reader (please remember that there is a Scottish glossary at the back!). In general, the author does not spend too much time on character development (outside of the children and their grandmother, the characters are very two-dimensional), but for many young readers, this will not prove a problem.

   So, let me just say that my daughter and I both enjoyed this book, and we highly recommend it to you!




4. (...)

   I think the theme of the Pictish Child is magic. Like people disappearing, Dog and Nina are magical creatures. Dog is a dog and Nina is the Pictish Child. Any cold metal or iron will burn them. Jennifer and Peter, the twins, and their little sister Molly are three Americans in Scotland for the summer to visit their grandma and grandpa.
   Their challenge was trying to keep the sinister fog out of the house by putting pots and tools around the house. Peter was tricked into opening the door, thinking it was their mom, dad and grandpa. Read the book to find out who was really at the door!
   I did not think that the Pictish Child was the best book I have ever read. I think that it was confusing because people are disappearing and the book does not tell where they go. Also the Scottish dialect was confusing too.
   I would recommend this book to kids 10-15 but if you are someone who is eight like me and can understand magic unlike me then you could read it.
   There are no illustrations but I can say they would be helpful.
   It is the second book in the series and you can read it in any order.




5. Here we are at the second of three books in the Tartan Magic Series and we rejoin Peter, Jennifer and Molly still on vacation in Scotland with parents (visiting their grandparents). With just Gran and the kids home for the day...and what with it being a typically rainy Scottish weather, Gran and the kids set off to visit some of her friends at the Eventide Home for the Elderly. Returning in this volume is the dog and horse from the first book, both serve largely to provide humor in the story line and I've come to love that cranky, sarcastic old mutt!
   
   While the group is visiting Gran's coven, Molly (the youngest) is given a talisman which sets them off on yet another magical adventure to save the world from a power hungry villain! The group joins up with Ninia a Pictish girl from the ancient past who is being chased by an ominous dark mist and it's up to the kids and their Gran to solve the mystery, get the girl back to her time and foil the villain!
   
   This is a wonderful little story for young readers (I'd say 8-14 is the ideal range here), while there's not much to the character development, it's got great pace and a fair amount of suspense and with the proper attention, readers can figure out "who done it" just before it's revealed. I'm a bit disappointed to see that Peter is still portrayed as a brooding, moody and somewhat prone to temper tantrums (he stalks off from the home) and the focus of this story, as in the first, is on Molly and her emerging magical skills. Since they are twins, it would be nice to see a more even development of the characters. Overall, I give it a B, it's fast paced, suspenseful, magical, and just plain fun!

No comments about Seven for the Sea.

No comments about The Speyside Way (Rucksack Readers).

No comments about Edinburgh the New Official Guide/Scotland's Capital City.

No comments about Scots on Scotch: The Book of Whisky.

4 comments about Following the Sun: A Bicycle Pilgrimage From Andalusia to the Hebrides.

1. Whoever wrote that review that you say was in Publisher's Weekly obviously never read anything by John Hanson Mitchell! They must be confusing him with some other author. Mitchell's writing is always so good-hearted and generous--the opposite of caustic!
   Following the Sun is so rich--a journey on two levels; a review of virtually everything under the sun, from myth to bird migration to the solar origins of Christianity. But it's also a delightful bicycle ride--all the way from the south of Spain to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland with journeys throughout the vineyards of Bordeaux, the chateaux of the Loire in France and the stone circles of the British Isles in between. Mitchell always has a way of falling in with eccebntric types, as I've seen in his other books eg. Ceremonial Time (a 15,000 year history of one square mile of land)and The Wildest Place on Earth (about Italian gardens and the American wilderness). He seems to be able to mix arcane facts about the setting of sugar in winegrapes, and the perversities of Roman emperors and the like with a sharp ear for story. There are some great ones here with some rollicking Old World characters. The author followed back roads all the way, and he did it before the establishment of the European Union when all the food was better, the wine sweeter, and the stories deeper. And Mitchell's writing style, lyrical and smooth, is a salve for whatever ails you. What a pleasure!



2. John Hanson Mitchell recounts his travels by bike from Southern Spain through France and England finally ending up in Scotland all the while musing on the sun and the indelible mark it has left on our culture. The book is part travelogue, part philosophical musing, part anthropological study, part religious mediation. The accounts of the people and places he encountered are compelling and his descriptions of the food he ate along the way made me very hungry! It all adds up to a thought-provoking and entertaining read.

   A couple of quibbles: It would have been great if there was a map included with the book that showed the route traveled. Mitchell writes eloquently about the geography and it's hard to visualize it without having a map handy (unless of course you are very familiar with the regions he's writing about). I also found it somewhat disturbing that it wasn't clear when exactly this journey took place. The book came out last year or the year before,but it seems that the actual trip took place long ago.




3. John Hanson Mitchell, editor of "Sanctuary," the journal of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, begins riding a 40-year-old-plus Peugeot bicycle north on the first day of spring in southern Spain. The hopeful destination (a 1,500 mile trek) is to arrive in the Hebrides (Scotland) on the first day of summer.
   
   "Following the Sun" offers more than bicycle-travel stories. A history of sun worshipers through the ages such as the Aztecs, Incas and several other sun cultures are discussed.
   A delightful and eccentric bunch of characters along Mitchell's route lighten the didactic tone of the book. A speaker from the Flat Earth Society preaches in a confident manner to an ever-growing hostile crowd in Hyde Park. An overly protective bed and breakfast manager repeatedly dissuades Mitchell from riding to Scotland. She shouts, "You'll die of exposure in the empty wind like a poor lamb. No one in their right mind ventures out to the Hebrides . . . You'll be speared and eaten."
   
   Mitchell's view from the bicycle seat is brought into one's imagination easily thanks to the author's keen eye for detail. We also experience his roadside pasture rest stops; he writes, "sliced my `tomates,' onions, and sardines, tore off a tranche of bread, and uncorked a bottle of Sancerre." One empathizes with the enjoyment of such a simple meal after having taken part of the arduous bike-ride with the writer rider.
   
   "Following The Sun" proves to be a contagious read; an immense sense of passion flows through each page. Wanderlust will even ignite the soul of timid travelers to ramble through the book as if competing in the "Tour de France."
   
   Bohdan Kot



4. the book is good when the author describes his bicycle trip, howev he goes off the subject and into history for too long. i expect short historical descriptions once in a while. but not page after page of history. history that i already know about. this is, afterall a travel book not a history book.

1 comments about The Castles And Mansions Of Ayrshire: Illustrated In Seventy Views With Historical And Descriptive Accounts.

1. A reprint of a book over 100 years old. Shows photos of Ayrshire in the most comprehensive treatment I have seen. Architectural emphasis with history of each place. Many gone with time. The rest allow you to plan a great historical tour of Ayrshire. This is beyond the average tourist and is most useful to those seeking family roots and locals interested in a day trip. If you or your family is from Ayrshire, I highly recommend this book.

No comments about Islay And Jura (Images of Scotland).

No comments about Scottish Pipers (Souvenir Guide) (Souvenir Guide).

No comments about The West Highlands: The Lonely Lands, Including All the Glories of That Land Known as Argyll (Luath Guides).