Sword Quest

Nancy Yi Fan's Sword Quest is a fantasy adventure for 8 year olds set in a world of birds at war, where everyone is hunting the same sword.

What happens

It starts with an old phoenix king called Pepheroh, crouched in a palm tree at dawn, out of ideas. Birds used to share the trees and the seeds. Now they cheat and steal and peck, and the strongest ones have picked up weapons, and war has gone across the world like a hurricane.

He asks for help and gets an answer. Make a sword.

So the blacksmiths of Kauria set to work, and while they hammer, a tear falls out of the sky. It is the Great Spirit's, and it breaks into eight gemstones. The biggest one lands on the hilt and the sword is finished.

There are conditions. Guard it for three years, until a worthy bird comes to claim it on the fifth full moon. And if the wrong bird gets it first, everything gets worse.

Meanwhile an emperor called Hungrias hears about the gems and wants them. His knight Sir Maldeor is sent to take one off a small tribe of doves, and lumbered with the emperor's spoiled son for the trip.

That raid goes very badly for everybody, and it produces the two birds this book is really about. One of them hatches on a beach afterwards, white feathered with his eyes already open, which doves are not supposed to do. His mother calls him Wind-voice.

The next time you meet him he is a slave scrubbing pots in a cave, with a slash of red dye on his face and a number instead of a name.

The world building is the treat here. There are knights and empires and scripture quoted at the head of the chapters, and it all takes itself completely seriously, which is exactly what an eight year old wants from this sort of thing.

Now the thing to check before you buy it. This is properly violent for the age on the shelf. A dove's father is killed in front of her in one line. A young prince is swallowed alive by a four winged dinosaur while a knight pulls at his leg, and his squeals carry on for a paragraph. The empire keeps slaves and eats the prisoners it can't use, which is said out loud.

None of it is gory and none of it is dwelt on, but it is a war story with animals in it rather than an animal story with a scrap in it. A child who reads battle scenes happily will be fine. A gentler one may want something else.

What to read next

For another young animal who is smaller than everyone around him, try Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing. Shade is the runt of his bat colony, useless at catching tiger moths, and a very long migration is coming.