Customer Reviews
Beware 
2008-06-25
Redwall is a great story about animals trying to defend themselves from the evil ones, but I would be careful who I recommend it to. I enjoyed most of it, with the exception of some of the rough scenes wherein someone dies or is tortured. The author doesn't make a great deal of it, yet they are descriptive and perhaps too much for younger readers, or listeners... an adult can handle it fine.
Anna del C.
Author of "The Elf and the Princess"
The Elf and The Princess: The Silent Warrior Trilogy - Book One (The Silent Warrior Trilogy)
Redwall 
2008-04-21
Redwall (Tale of Redwall)Suitable for middle school youth. Good narrative with lots of action and imagination.
First Novel I ever read 2008-03-10
I started this series in 4th grade. I'm 24 now and I have read it over again about 4 times. This book was amazing when I was a child, and it still is. Brian Jacques does a fantastic job with his characters and scenery. The poems/riddles are great. The best of the series: Mattimeo. (3rd book)
Great for bedtime ! 2008-03-04
(Review by Samuel, 8 years old)
I like this book a lot. We haven't finished it yet but I think it is very exciting. We read one or two chapters every night. Sometimes my Dad reads for us, sometimes I read by myself. Some of the words are hard, but I still enjoy it. I would love to read more books by Brian Jacques.
It Could Be Worse, But I'll Skip the Sequels 
2008-03-01
This quasi-Medieval fantasy about mouse monks, and various other small woodland beings, taking shelter in an Abbey besieged by a bandit army of rats, stoats and ferrets, is good enough to make me wish it were better, but not good enough to make me read more of the series.
One flaw is the descriptive writing. Despite an imaginative premise, the author rarely gives enough info to let the reader form a picture in his mind. For instance, a horse with cart galloped past our heroes as they traveled on a road, and it was not until a chapter later that I was able to determine that the horse was traveling in the opposite direction than I had imagined. A more lasting problem is imagining the relative scale of the various animals and their surroundings. Though much of the action takes place in Redwall Abbey, I was more than halfway through the book before I managed to resolve the nagging question of how large the Abbey was relative to its inhabitants, wasting many of the images I had formed in my early reading. Turns out that though these Mice are normal mouse-size (they are smaller than rats, 400 of whom can fit in a horse cart), the Abbey they live in is human-sized (with outer walls over 20 feet high, and an even higher Abbey roof). But even this left me with nagging unresolved questions of what sort of doors these mice open, and what sort of steps they climb, in what sort of rooms they hold their feasts, and how they could possibly defend so large a structure. At other times, the author seems to switch to the idea that these are human-sized animals living in a Giant-sized Abbey, as when he assumes that a fall from a wall or roof will almost always mean instant death for a rat or mouse.
Another major flaw is the sloppy, lazy plotting, by which the author just forces one event to follow another. Here's a very early example: Cluny, the evil leader of the villainous rat horde, asks for a private audience with the Abbot, and in order to achieve this, permits himself to stripped of weapons, separated from his horde, and ushered into the Abbey. Having thus rendered himself helpless, he proceeds to tell the Abbot "surrender immediately, or I'll kill you all". The incensed Abbot knows the horde will be helpless and disorganized without their leader, but honorably decides not to kill the helpless villain, instead permitting him to leave and continue his siege. The explanation offered for the Villain's inexplicable risk-taking is that he knew the mice were too honorable to harm a guest. But it is odd for Evil to have such mighty faith in Virtue. Why take the risk? Why not have his herald shout out these simple terms? Why did Cluny need the private audience. The answer, it turns out, is simply that, unbeknownst to Cluny, the Author needed an plot device to get Cluny into the Great Hall of the Abbey so he could see a certain Tapestry which will later haunt his dreams.
The lazy plotting cannot be forgiven by claiming this story is a fantasy and a children's story. When an author puts more effort into a story, plotting it carefully, it does not make the story harder to read -- quite the reverse. True, kids are undemanding critics, less likely than adults to notice flaws, but that does not mean we should throw trash at them.
Another problem I have is with the story's morality. On the plus side, it is not clear that it is completely amoral, like, some children's literature these days. On the other hand the morality is, as another reviewer put it, "underdeveloped." In this, it is roughly on the level of the Harry Potter books (though ultimately more violent and bloodthirsty). It has a sort of Ron-Harry-Hermione syndrome, wherein the central hero is flanked, on the one hand, by more bloodthirsty and amoral friends (such as Constance) who do his dirty work for him, and on the other hand by a more restrained friend (here, the Abbot), whose moral scruples are treated as a lovable character flaw. Our hero (or the reader) gets to have it both ways, participating vicariously both in the viciousness and the virtues of his various friends, without having to stand up to any of them or make any real moral choices.
I was, however, particularly disturbed by the central hero's mistreatment of a female sparrow prisoner, wherein an oath extracted under torture and threat of death leads instantly to a Stockholm-syndrome type friendship.
The author makes the villains ridiculously exaggerated. Their zeal for wickedness transcends self-serving evil-doing and crashes headlong into self-destructive stupidity. This ploy makes it easy enough to contrast villains with heroes, but it obscures, rather than highlights, any real moral awareness. A related issue is that heroes and cartoon villains are neatly divided by animal species. Rats, Foxes, Ferrets and Stoats are all automatically Evil. The Mice, Squirrels and Moles are simply Good, and any flaws they may have seem to be regarded merely as amusing character traits.
My problem is not that Jacques has written a violent tale featuring death and killing. It is a mistake to criticize violence in the abstract without regard to whether the violence is justified. But it still seems to me that the author botched a golden opportunity to give these such issues a better treatment.
KCS Redwall Review 2008-02-24
A special release of one of the most beloved fantasy adventures of our time!
Start those young kids on a new hero! 2008-02-24
BUY the unabridged audio for this and you will NEVER regret it. Brian reads it himself and he has every character voice down pat because they were all stuck in his head for so many years. His history in the BBC also makes his voice in mesmerizing and enchanting so much that you will have a hard time turning it off. You need to buy the Redwall series because the story plays out over a few chronicles so do not just buy the first in the series get the first three. It is a great pick for those who would like more adventure with less magic. It takes place with woodland creatures and could also be considered a coming of age story.
RICH CHICKS reviews specializes in media that is purchased by women. We read hundreds of books every year and are serious about or recommendations. We review books that are of interest to a female demographic. We do not get a kick-back or commission for our reviews so they are left as an impartial judge.
Great 2008-01-18
I'm 19 years old and I read this book began I enjoyed reading in when I was younger. I read many of the redwall series while I was in middle school and I still enjoyed reading it. I love adventure books and these are all great adventure books. The characters being rodents is a little wierd but creates an interesting picture for your imagination. I sometimes wish they would make movies, obviously cartoons out of these movies to go along with them but that would take away from the amazing picture you develop in your mind. This is one of my favorite Redwall books and I would recommend it to anyone.
-The Next Great Fantasy Series- 2008-01-10
To start things off I would like to be genuinely honest and say that I am not an avid reader by any means, not because I don't love to read, but because many books fail to capture my attention. Once in a while a book will fall into my lap that can get me to spend my Friday night on my couch, something that not even the best movie or video game has ever accomplished. Redwall, I will say is one of those books, like Harry Potter, like The Golden Compass, and like The Lord of the Rings books that is very easy to fall in love with and not be able to put down.
The previous reviewer, while showing some likeness for the book stated that the book was too gruesome at some points. While I noticed some of this in the book, I would hardly say it is nearly as bad as described and I would like to add that the book would not have been able to achieve the level of prestige it has gotten were it not for these fight scenes. Although it is pointed out that this would only be a problem for children, it is easy to see why that is a pointless thing to say. The book is 416 pages long and unless your child is young Einstein II it is not geared towards children. Would you take your child to see an R rated movie when they are 12? Probably not, which is the same idea as letting them read this book, and it hardly achieves what I would call a PG-13 rating by any standards. The second thing I would like people reading David's review to understand, and while the review he wrote is much appreciated it seems to have one more flaw. The scale of the book seems to be the main "knock" on it because in other stories we all know and love the scale is different? Just because Jacques did not go into great detail about why the badger is the same size as the rats and the mice does not mean it was done sloppily or without any thought. I for one don't think the book would have been quite the same if the badger was so big it could not fit inside the castle to protect Redwall. Well maybe you can argue that different animals could have been used in place of the badger that is more mouse and rat size. I don't think however that it would have been the same if a guinea pig or hamster were protecting Redwall, nor do I think he would have been able to convince me that they are capable of doing an even adequate job. The scale Jacques used was for good reason, and to say that it took away from the book or was sloppily done is simply incorrect. On top of that, the book is a fantasy book with talking animals that are capable of constructing castles, plotting attacks, and solving riddles, why is it so inconceivable that the scale used for this book makes most of the animals approximately the same size? It is not bad thinking to make the scale this way in comparison to other fantasy books, it is simply different, and as far as I'm concerned, if you really think about it, it makes sense.
It seems as I look at other reviews, many people shared the same passion for this book that I had. Others argued flaws that they obviously haven't thought too much about and are easily refutable. Why didn't some of Cluny's army leave him to go join the mice of Redwall? Well why didn't the German's just come join us during World War II since they knew what Hitler was doing was wrong? Why didn't one of the Japanese come warn us that they were coming to bomb us at Perl Harbor? As well as this, I really doubt that the mice would have taken in a rat from Cluny's army, and given him full trust and responsibility with weaponry inside Redwall.
So if you have come to Amazon looking for a good book to read, just read some of the other 608 five star reviews that were written in favor of this book, as well as 99 four star reviews. Any of those people who rated the book any lower I am open to responses as to why this book is not exceptional. The book contains a character to cheer for, a likable cast of characters as well as many to hate, a fun story plot, an outstanding writing technique by Brian Jacques, a lot of action and fighting, riddles to be solved, a hero to be born, and when you're done reading it, eleven more books in the series to read.
Redwall 2008-01-08
I highly recommend this book because it is based on mice, stoats, ferrets, rats and other animals protecting and defending a place called Redwall. The ending is very strong and if you like little animals like that, I really really recommend this. I'm already starting the second book because Redwall is so good.
