Uki and the Outcasts

Kieran Larwood's Uki and the Outcasts is a rabbit fantasy for 9 year olds about a boy with two different furs and a whole village that wants him gone.

What happens

It's the fourth book in The Five Realms, and it brings in a new hero. The travelling bard is back on the road with his little apprentice Rue, who ALWAYS wants more Podkin stories. What he gets instead is the tale of Uki.

Uki is eight. Down the middle of him runs a line. One side is black with an icy blue eye, the other snow white with a brown one. Everyone else in his tribe in the frozen Ice Wastes is pure white, so to them he's a demon. They wanted him left out in the snow when he was born.

So he and his mum Meera live in a leaky hut on the edge of the village. The other children call him names and throw stones.

Then a girl called Nua finds him building dams in the stream and asks if she can help. Nobody has ever wanted to play with him before. Who doesn't remember that feeling? Sadly, two bullies are watching from the other bank.

The best thing about these books is the bard. He tells the story as they ride along, and every so often he stops to talk straight to Rue (at one point he tells him to close his mouth and let him get on with it). It's very much like being told a story by the fire.

Rue is lovely company too. He gapes at his first mountains and fires off questions faster than anyone can answer.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The bard tells Rue it's a very sad start, and he isn't exaggerating. The villagers stone Uki's home and a rock cuts deep into his leg. His mum gets him away into a freezing forest, but the wound turns bad. She thinks he has died, buries him under stones in a graveyard and lies down beside him, too weak to go on.

Uki isn't dead (the bard tells you so straight away), and he wakes up next to a strange little spirit made of fire. But that chapter is a lot for a child who finds grief or a parent in danger upsetting. If your reader is happy with real darkness in a fantasy story, they'll be rooting for Uki from the first page.

What to read next

The bard sums up how the first three books end along the way. So if your reader hasn't met Podkin yet, start with The Legend of Podkin One-Ear. The same bard tells it, turning up at a snowy warren on midwinter night.