Book Review: Thadities and the Clan

​Book Review: Thadities and the Clan The Wildwoods of First
Author: Carolyn Wyrsch
Genre: Middle-Grade
Publisher: Balboa Press
Book Reviewer: Elizabeth Klein
 
Take some fairy tale ingredients such as magic books, elementals, talking dragons, giants, moving trees and a host of other creatures, put them in a blender and you get an epic tale of mystery. It begins when a squire named Oak wakes up after a celebration and discovers everyone in the castle has vanished. And what does he do? He goes in search for clues to discover what happened and stumbles upon the biggest adventure of his life. 

It’s a tale of self-discovery as Oak learns things about himself, about who his parents were as well as finding his sister. Once he meets the dragons, they discover how peculiar the wildwoods are, where vines and trees move around and even slap Oak. Tree roots move and even the ground shifts. Some good concepts there which I would have loved to have seen developed more, as well as the dialogue and character emotions. The protagonists felt static and could have been better refined for readers to feel empathy with them on their quest. 

​The navigators didn’t feel sinister enough for me. They didn’t make my teeth rattle and my blood go cold with terror. I would have liked to have seen some villainous characters described and given names to make my knees knock together, as well as a good up and close personal battle with Oak, and him having to make some terrible sacrifice for his sister’s life.