From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8–What is loyalty and to whom is it owed? Are our enemies truly as evil as we are taught? Do our leaders really do what is best, or what is expedient? And how can we determine the truth? These themes are explored through the character of Dayven, a 14-year-old Watcherlad to Lord Enar. Growing up in a land where wizards are mistrusted, no boy wants to discover that he has magical powers, yet this is exactly what happens when it is Dayven's turn to be tested. Horrified, he swears he will never join the wizards and agrees to spy on them for Lord Enar. Apprenticed to the seemingly drunken buffoon Reddick, Dayven soon learns that the world is not the black-and-white place he imagined it to be. Enemies turn out to have similar hopes and dreams and Dayven discovers that his own people are not as honorable or well intentioned as he always believed. In order to preserve the ecological equilibrium necessary to sustain the lands of those whom his people have sworn to protect, he must decide whether to stand with the wizards and maintain the balance or cling to what he's been taught is right. Hard questions are asked and answered in a slim book that will find a wide audience and spark much discussion.
–Sharon Grover, Arlington County Department of Libraries, VA
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Booklist
Gr. 5-8. Never trust a "craven and treacherous" wizard--that's what Dayven, a trainee warrior of the imperialistic Tharn culture, has always been taught. When a ritual reveals that he possesses magical power, Dayven reflexively declines a wizard's apprenticeship. Then Dayven is asked by a Tharn overlord to accept the apprenticeship and report back on any treacherous alliances with the rebellious, oppressed Cenzar peoples. As Dayven travels with his wizard mentor and befriends an impish Cenzar boy, his willingness to spy ebbs and his assumptions about wizards, magic, and the Cenzar themselves fade into confusing "shades of grey." Although Dayven's ideological shift is more an about-face than a natural evolution, there is satisfaction to be gleaned from the parallels to real-world collisions between heedless, exploitative conquerors and native peoples whose ways are as misunderstood as they are reviled. The book's clarity and brevity make it most appropriate for readers not yet ready for the denser goings-on of Bell's sf thriller
A Matter of Profit (2002) or
Flame (2003), the first installment in her in-progress Farsala Trilogy.
Jennifer MattsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
