Pearls of Lutra (Redwall)

As you can see this is my favorite book in the Redall books. I am a big fan of fantasy, and this book really upheld my expectations. And, being a Lord of the Rings fan my expectations are really high. Two years before the story starts Emperor Ulbaz, called Mad Eyes behind his back, send a shipload of Corstairs to steal the Tears of all Oceans, six perfect, rose colored pearls. But to do this, they must murder the Holt of Lutra the Otter. Unfortunatly for the Corstairs, they made one big mistakes. they left Lutra's daughter, Grath Longfletch, alive. One of the crew turnes out to be a trator, he steals the pearls, and finds his way to Redwall Abbey where an Fermald the Ancient takes him in and befrends him. He later leaves the Abbey, but dies before he gets too far. Before Fermald dies she hides the six pearls is different places around the abbey, leaving clues in the form of riddles to enable some one to eventually find them. Fast forward two years. Tansy, a hedgehog maid and Arven, a squrrell Dibbuns are out gathering herbs for Sister Cicely, who is in charge of the Infermatary. Getting caught in a rainstorm, they seek shelter in some old caves, where they discover an old skeleton. Later, we find out it is the skeleton of the old Corstair. As the story unfolds Tansy is faced with the challange of finding the six pearls, while Martin the Warrior #2 has to sail to Sampentra, the corstair's home isalnd, to recover the Abbot Durall and Viola Bankvole, who were kidnapped by some of Ulbaz's Monitor Lizzards. I found this story to be a good read. The characters are very realistic, some of my favorites are Clecky the hare, and Arven the Squrrell, whose speaks in a cute baby voice(her is an example: Firsta sunny thena rannywet, it'sa maggit!) Unlike Tolkien, the names are easy to pronounce and the story is not as confusing, even though there are at least two or three subplots; which are very nice because they help you understand what has been happening by the time our Heros become involved. I must warn you though. If you prefer books to be more real then DO NOT read this book. It most defenatly will dissapoint you.

Having just started my journey into the series called Redwall, Pearls of Lutra is my 9th read after Redwall, Mattimeo, Mossflower, Martin the Warrior, Outcast of Redwall, Mariel of Redwall, & The Bellmaker. Now like all Redwall books I have read, It started innocently enough, but then escalated into a plot so thick that you really had to pay attention in order to keep up during the ride, which made a very refreshing read and even made you think to solve the many riddles involved into finding the Pearls of Lutra. My favorite character was Grath Lutra, whose family was massacred when the evil Mad Eyes sent a crew to steal the Pearls of Lutra, I found that by the end of the book, I thought of them not as animals but as people and I was ready to aid them in the fight for good. Some old characters appear, like Martin, Mattimeo's son, also you meet the current Abbot, Skipper, and even a Long Patrol hare. I would, in closing, highly suggest The Pearls of Lutra fo anyone, young or old for an escape from reality.

I think that the book The Pearls of Lutra was totally cool! It was about a different sort of crisis in Redwall. When the an evil pine marten, Emperor Ublaz "Mad Eyes" of Sampetra,sets out to claim the "Tears of All Oceans",six beautiful pink pearls, for his own,the trouble on Sampetra naturally turns North towards Redwall Abbey. One of the corsairs from the island stole the Tears from his Captain,who was taking them to Ublaz. Greylunk(the corsair) received a fatal head injury from his accomplice,and painfully made his way to Redwall, where he was nursed by Fermald the Ancient until his death. Fermald hides the 6 pearls around the abbey. When Ublaz sends a young,kind-hearted corsair ferret named Romsca and a score of filthy monitor lizards to reclaim the pearls, they kidnao the Abbot and a young vole named Viola, and sail back to Sampetra with them. However, some complications arise.... Ok, mateys, I anit sayin no more! Read this yarn for yerselves. The book was beautifully written, and though the characters were a bit 2/D at times, I loved it. I especially thought that Romsca,Barranca and Conva(for the short time he lived) were really cool.

I'm not a fantasy fan, and when I started I kind of went, Whoaaa! But after I started going, I couldn't stop! I probably would have never have read it, but it appeared on the Battle of the Books list for 7th/8th grade battle of the books, so I didn't have a choice. Incredibly descriptive, this is one of the best of the Redwall books. Trying to figure out the riddles before the characters was entertaining, not that I did all that well, and the character development was interesting. At the beginning, there were too many characters for me to handle, of course I had never read a Redwall book before at that time, but by the end, I could tell you about each and every character. This story beautifully addresses greed and the ability some find to abuse power. If some one were hesitant about starting the series at the begging, although this one is a ways after, it's a good place to start.

I could not put it down. It was very well written and intense. I like all the books from Brian Jaques, but my brother,...well, we won't go into that