Spirit Animals – Fall of the Beasts 7 – Stormspeaker

Christina Diaz Gonzalez's Stormspeaker is a Fall of the Beasts adventure for 9 year olds, and it opens with the heroes of Erdas being hunted.

What happens

Abeke, Conor, Meilin and Rollan saved the world. Then they were framed for a murder none of them committed, and now a company of mercenaries called the Oathbound is chasing them across it.

They're on a small hired fishing boat heading for Nilo, Abeke's homeland, with a fifth Greencloak named Anka who can turn the colour of whatever she's standing in front of. They need two more bond tokens. They are also, none of them, looking forward to seeing Kovo.

Kovo is a gorilla. He masterminded two wars and killed thousands, including Meilin's father. He also helped them once, when the whole world was at stake. Abeke spends the sunrise on deck trying to work out whether she can put all that aside, and decides she can't, quite.

That's the flavour of this one. There's fighting, but the interesting part is what everyone is carrying. Conor was infected by a parasite in these very waters and nobody mentions it to him. There's a friend they left behind in a cave-in, and after the first few days they simply stopped talking about him, because staying alive meant paying attention to something else.

It's a big cast. Four children, four spirit animals, several continents and an enormous amount of history. A reader starting here will follow the chase perfectly well, but the weight of it comes from already knowing what these four have lost.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The Wildcat's Claw has already been found when this one opens, which puts it a good way into the story rather than near the start. There's battle, grief, a murdered parent in the background and a friend who may or may not be dead.

What it does very well is the friendship. Rollan is the one making jokes about seasickness. Meilin is the one who says Conor will be fine because he's a survivor, in the slightly too brisk way people do when they're worried. Abeke squeezes Conor's arm and says she believes in his visions. They know each other extremely well by now, and you feel it.

What to read next

If your reader would rather start where everyone else did, Wild Born is in the library. Four children turn eleven, drink the Nectar at their local ceremony and find out whether an animal comes when they call. Conor spends the morning of his doing up the forty-eight clasps on a nobleman's coat.