The Wildcat’s Claw by Varian Johnson is book six of Spirit Animals Fall of the Beasts, a fantasy quest for 9 year olds about four children who wake up one morning as wanted criminals.<\/p>\n
That’s the first thing to say, because this one starts in the middle of a great deal. The Greencloaks have been blamed for the fall of an emperor. Most of them are locked up. Conor, Abeke, Meilin and Rollan are on a ship to Eura with bounties out for them, and they’ve left their green cloaks by the roadside so nobody recognises them.<\/p>\n
Each child is bonded to a spirit animal. Conor has Briggan, a wolf out of the old stories. Abeke has a leopard called Uraza. Meilin has a panda, Jhi, who licks her face. Rollan has a falcon who will not be told anything and spits out the dried fish he offers her.<\/p>\n
That’s the charm of it, honestly. Enormous legendary beasts who behave exactly like pets. Briggan rolls about in the wet grass and yelps like a puppy the second he’s let out.<\/p>\n
What they’re after is a sword. It belonged to a warrior with a black wildcat, and the only records that might say where it’s hidden were in a manor house that one of their own party set on fire. He hasn’t told the others. That’s a fine sort of secret to be carrying on a long cold walk north.<\/p>\n
A word about the opening, though. It’s set in a cell, where a woman has been starved for two days and is then slapped twice with a spiked ring until she bleeds, while a friend of hers lies half turned to stone by snake venom and in pain. The war behind all this gets described too, village against village, brother against brother. None of it lingers, but it’s all there in the opening chapter.<\/p>\n
If that’s more than your reader wants, this isn’t the book to start on. If they’re already happy with quests where children carry real weapons and lose people, they’ll be fine.<\/p>\n
And do start at the start. There’s a whole earlier series ahead of this one, and five more books in this one before it, so a parent picking this up cold will be several wars behind.<\/p>\n
Start with Wild Born, which you’ll find here too. Conor is still a shepherd’s son working off his father’s debt as a servant to a thoroughly unpleasant young lord, doing up forty-eight clasps on the back of his coat, and not one of the four has met an animal yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Wildcat’s Claw by Varian Johnson is book six of Spirit Animals Fall of the Beasts, a fantasy quest for 9 year olds about four children who wake up one morning as wanted criminals. That’s the first thing to say, because this one starts in the middle of a great deal. The Greencloaks have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10825,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8697,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Wild Born","lr_seo_hook":"Four wanted children hunt a legendary sword with an army on their heels."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1005],"class_list":["post-8698","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-varian-johnson"],"yoast_title":"Spirit Animals – Fall of the Beasts 6 – The Wildcat’s Claw by Varian Johnson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Four wanted children hunt a legendary sword with an army on their heels. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n