Abeni's Song

Abeni is twelve years old when the witch women destroy her village and take away her people. Though her village was warned by their local witch of the coming danger, they refused to believe her- and stay where they are.

The witch had been taking care of the village for many centuries and now asked for the village to fullfil their part of an age-old deal: giving up one of their children in return for everything the witch has done for them.

This, they also refuse. Only one person sneakily ends up giving away her child to the witch- Abeni's mother. When the village is destroyed, Abeni is the only one who remains. She is bedrugdingly taken in by the witch and so begins a coming-of-age journey of a small girl with a big past. At the beginning, it was reminiscent of A Wizard of Earthsea- a reluctant hero very eager to learn magic but not ready for it.

I had some gripes with this novel, at first. I realize I'm not the target audience for this! But I was still sometimes annoyed at the short sentences and abundance of exclamation marks! I'm not sure how well Clark's prose translates to a middle grade audience; it becomes a lot more generic and lacks imagination.

But prose is not everything. The story got better as it went on, with a real sense of adventure harboring animal spirits which reminded me of Darcie Little Badger's A SNAKE FALLS TO EARTH. There are some good, positive themes in this, and though it felt a bit black-and-white at times, I would heartily recommend this for the age group- and even for some diehard fans of Clark.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.