Brian Jacques

A Tale From Redwall

Mattimeo

Celeste Richardson

Mattimeo is the third installment in Brian Jacques’s Redwall series, and I can’t express to you how much fun I’ve been having as I revisit this series and world that meant so much to me as a child, alongside friends who are experiencing Mossflower and its inhabitants for the first time. This particular installment felt like it had a bit more going on than its predecessors, Mossflower and Redwall, while still holding true to the formulaic, but successfully so, format of the books. And it was filled with my three favorite elements of this series: little heroes facing incredible odds and succeeding anyway; heartwarming groups of these characters banding together to solve riddles or fight battles or fix what’s broken, or all of the above; and, of course, the mouth-watering descriptions of food.

This story ended up being a battle on multiple fronts, and I was pretty equally invested in all of them. The way Jacques would jump back and forth between said fronts so frequently within a single chapter was both engaging and jarring, which I found an odd but compelling mix. Our cast of characters in this installment felt a good deal larger than the casts of the two books preceding it, purely because of the multiple story arcs and settings. We have Mattimeo and the other Redwall youth who are kidnapped from the Abbey. We have Matthias the Warrior and the other parents and concerned parties who join forces along the way to free their children. We have those left at the Abbey, who suddenly find themselves facing invasion in the face of their warriors being gone. And then we have the various villainous groups on each of these different fronts. There was a lot to keep track of, considering the age group for whom these books are intended, but Jacques somehow ensured that everything was always easy to follow.

Something I really appreciated about this particular book is that we finally had a main villain with some canniness. Slagar the fox was a more intelligent and multifaceted villain than those in Mossflower or Redwall, though unfortunately he kind of fell apart at the end. But this is a series intended for children, so the evil have to be obviously evil and ultimately fallible. Something else I really appreciate about this series, and this installment in particular, is that even though this is intended for children and thus you have the security of knowing everything will turn out okay in the end, Jacques doesn’t believe in high stakes with no costs. There are character deaths here, and fairly significant ones. This adds tension to the trials of the main characters, because you’re never quite sure if they’re going to pull through or not, seeing as others have died along the way.

Overall, I have to say that Redwall as a whole is proving itself to have held up very well. Three books in, and all have been 4 stars so far. This has been an incredibly nostalgic journey so far for me, and I’m happy that TS and Eon seem to be enjoying themselves, as well. If you’re a fantasy fan looking for a story to share with the kids in your life, or simply looking for something clean and wholesome for yourself, I highly recommend the Redwall series.

Mattimeo A Tale From Redwall

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