Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

The Redwall series is a medieval fantasy that centers around stories of anthropomorphic animals who live in Redwall Abbey and the surrounding
countryside of Mossflower. Every book is a stand-alone story, though many share similar structure. All the books feature a struggle of good vs evil where warriors rise to defend the innocent and defeat evil.

While there is not an overarching story throughout all the novels, they all follow a similar pattern of plot. In the first parts of the novel, we are introduced to the villains of the story as well as the peaceful creatures and the heroes (or characters who will become heroes) of the story. What follows then is adventures, quest, battles and multiple story lines occurring at once.

Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Read Aloud Age: 9+

This is such a fun British series that isn’t too British. This series is very black and white. Jacques draws hard lines with the animal species
concerning who is a “good” character and who the “bad” characters are. Although this draws some criticism, this black and white framework makes it very easy for kids to follow and great for reading in any order. Once your child figures out who the “bad” animal characters are, they will be able to pick up any of the books and easily figure out the structure of the book.

Brian Jacques does a marvelous job of following many plot lines and having them all meet at the end. While all the novels differ with new characters, different stories, and varied adventures, the themes of friendship, bravery, honor good overcoming evil shine through every story.

Note on the Audiobooks: All the audiobooks on Audible/Hoopla are with the author with full voice cast. Super fun if you can understand the different British accents.

Language:
No Profanity throughout series. There are insults thrown around, typically by villainous characters, that are unique phrases to these stories/world and not phrases American children would typically use.

Questionable Behaviors:
Villainous characters are bad – they kill, lie, cheat, and steal. Any good characters that do those things are seen as acting wrongfully and it is addressed with consequences. The good characters do kill the bad guys, but it is never done out of cold blood but done in order to do what is just.

Sexual Content: None.

Other Things to Know:
There is no religion of the animals although the setting is an abbey. Martin the Warrior (a former character who has died) is seen as the “guiding spirit” of the abbey. He is viewed more of a guardian angel and will appear to some characters, but they don’t specifically worship him.

Address Genre: Anthropomorphic Animals set in a Medieval Fantasy with no magic.

Suggested Reading Groups/Order: From Super-fan Dad, it’s great to start with Redwall or Mossflower, but after that there is no specific order since all are stand-alone stories.

This review is written by Good Book Mom contributor, Brittney. To learn more about Brittney, click HERE.

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