Hush (2007)

Donna Jo Napoli writes stories based on fairy tales and this book is based on a story from an Icelandic saga about a girl named Melkorka who was bought by an Icelandic man named Hoskuld and takes her back to his home. In our book, Melkorka is an Irish princess who was kidnapped when trying to escape her town before the Vikings invaded. She is advised by another slave to pretend to be mute so that her pride and arrogance wouldn't end up getting her beaten or worse.

In the night someone rolls agains me as we lie sleeping. I open my eyes to see Maeve's eyes shining at me in the moonlight. "He's convinced you are an aist - a stork," she whispers. "A stork who has the power to chage form into a woman. He thinks you may be a charodeitsa - an enchantress, but unlike our Irish piseogai, he fears you could be evil. It's only how clean and pretty you are that keeps him from quaking."

Melkorka was sold by the Russian kidnappers to an Icelandic sailor named Hoskuld. She continues to learn about these hard, rough, people from the north and about herself in the process. Her intelligence serves her well by quickly picking up languages and knowledge about healing from another slave.

Life in these northern places was cold, dark, and cruel. By following Melkorka on her voyage we learn about these early civilizations. She was a remarkable girl who wisely used her wits to stay alive. I recommend this book to historical fiction fans.

My rating for this book: ++++

Bog Child (2008)

"Some things never change," seems to be the theme in this books by Siobhan Dowd set in Ireland. Living close to the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Fergus represents all of the children who are brought into the world in the middle of a war they didn't start and may die in instead of resolving the conflict. He discovers a partially buried body of a child when he and his uncle are (illegally) collecting peat from a bog near his home. The police quickly determine that the body is centuries old. An anthropologist and her daughter, Felicity, are brought in to try and learn how she died and include Fergus in their investigation.

"You'd never think there was anything wrong here in the North," Felicity said. "Would you?"

Fergus looked out at the green tunnel of trees ahead and the idyllic roadside flowers. "No."

"With the hunger strike and all, the news would have you believe the whole place was at its own throat."

Fergus swallowed. Maybe it is.

"They teach history like that," Felicity said. "Battle after battle - as if there was no ordinary living in between."

Fergus' brother is in prison and is participating in the hunger strike which adds tremendous stress to his family. Taking exams to be placed in medical school offers Fergus a way out of the madness but it is not a sure thing until he gets his grades back. Fergus gets flashes of what we see is the events leading up to the death of the bog child. She sacrificed herself for her village and that raises the question of how much good the fasters do for their efforts.

I highly recommend this book to readers as a way to try and understand what it is like living under such conditions.

My rating for this book: ++++