Wednesday 3 July 2013

80 Books No.42: The Midwinter Child by FJ Reid

This was recommended on TES as a potential class reader and I quite liked the concept: modern day child receives the sword Excalibur and has to complete some quest vaguely connected with King Arthur. I like an Arthurian legend; actually I need to find Sunrise of Avalon by Anna Elliott to complete that trilogy - I've only just remembered that. Anyway, I like an Arthurian legend because it's sort of historical and yet fantastical as well - which makes it pretty cool.

Within about a page of The Midwinter Child, it was clear that this was either self-published or from some minor publishing house. The cover* and font and generally type-setting smacked of a lack of money and also it needed editing in some places, which led me to believe self-published. It's certainly available on Authonomy. This doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or anything, but it is quite a jarring experience to keep having to work out distances between letters and things. There were a few misplaced punctuation marks and things which did basically colour my decision on using this as a class reader. It was also a bit long and in places not amazingly written.

However, judging it on its own merits, it was an enjoyable enough read. The main character was reasonably engaging and there was a mystery and mythological element which I enjoyed. I found it difficult to get into at times, which may have been a reflection of my lack of concentration whilst reading it, but also that it wasn't the most attention grabbing book ever. Indeed, I skim read parts of it.

I probably read this too much with a teacher's hat on. Someone without a teacher's hat on give it a whirl.

* You'll have to trust me on that; I couldn't actually find a picture of the cover for this blog :(

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