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Ellen Renner's Storm Witch is a fierce island fantasy for 11 year olds about a girl whose Choosing night goes very strangely indeed.
On the island of Yanlin, everyone is Chosen at thirteen by one of four spirits, the Albatross, the Dolphin, the Tortoise or the Salamander. The spirit that picks you decides what work you'll do for the rest of your life.
Storm is dreading the Dolphin. She's sure it killed her dad, who sailed away when she was five and never came home. Even diving off the pier, she can feel its eyes on her.
The day before her Choosing, the Drowned Ones attack. They're pirates who live on a huge floating raft-town, and in the island's old stories they eat children. Storm fights from an archery tower while her mum stands in the shield wall below.
Then, just when Storm's mum needs saving, a gust of wind picks up her falling arrow and carries it somewhere no arrow should reach.
That night, alone on the mountain, Storm visits all four shrines. And one spirit speaking to her turns out to be only the beginning.
The world is so rich you can almost smell it. Cloud leopards, mag-mag monkeys, rice cakes and plum sauce, and girls with thirteen plaits to prove they've come of age. Storm is a storyteller like her dad, and the old tales she tells round the circle are some of the best bits. There's a bully, Mixi, who turns out to have troubles of her own too.
Be ready for real loss here. The battle is on the page. A pirate is shot in the throat, the beach runs with blood and the dead are laid out afterwards. Storm's best friend, Thorn, is among them.
It reads at the very top of this shelf. A reader who's upset by the death of a friend may find that chapter tough. But if they love a big destiny story with a heroine who doesn't want the destiny she's given, Storm is ideal.
Ellen Renner's Castle of Shadows is a slightly younger read with the same feel. Charlie is a princess nobody looks after. Her mother vanished in the night, and she steals cheese from the castle kitchen because she's hungry.
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