Book description
THE CHILDREN
FROM THE SEA OF TROLLS
BRAVE THEIR WORST
NIGHTMARES -- UNDERGROUND.
Jack is amazed to have caused an earthquake. He is thirteen, after
all, and only a bard-in-training. But his sister, Lucy, has been
stolen by the Lady of the Lake; stolen a second time in her young
life, as he learns to his terror. Caught between belief in the old
gods and Christianity (790 AD, Britain), Jack calls upon his ash wood
staff to subdue a passel of unruly monks, and, for his daring, ends up
in a knucker hole. It is unforgettable -- for the boy and for readers
-- as are the magical reappearance of the berserker Thorgil from a
burial by moss; new characters Pega, a slave girl from Jack's village,
and the eager-to-marry-her Bugaboo (a hobgoblin king); kelpies;
yarthkins; and elves (not the enchanted sprites one would expect but
the fallen angels of legend). Rarely does a sequel enlarge so
brilliantly the world of the first story. Look for the conclusion in
The Islands of the Blessed in 2009.
"Jack, Pega, and Thorgil prove strong and
capable in ways they themselves never suspected, and readers will look
forward to the final installment." -- Kirkus Reviews,
Starred Review
Nancy Farmer has written three Newbery Honor
books: The Ear, the Eye and the Arm; A Girl Named
Disaster; and The House of the Scorpion, which, in 2002,
also won the National Book Award and the Printz Honor. Other books
include The Sea of Trolls, The Land of the Silver
Apples, The Islands of the Blessed, Do You Know Me,
The Warm Place, and three picture books for young children.
She grew up on the Arizona-Mexico border and now lives with her family
in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona.
