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Nancy Farmer, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
Fri, Apr. 9th, 2004 11:18 pmA kids book I've been wanting to pick up for a while, set in future Zimbabwe, written in that deceptively clear style that I very much enjoy.
I especially appreciated the setting in Africa and the use of some African mythology (or Farmer's version thereof) within, which pleased me immensely.
My one disappointment was that Tendai was the main POV character, and it's maybe a bit silly of me, but whenever there is a girl in the set of siblings (or friends, or group of people), I want it to be her story. So I wanted Rita, his little sister, to be the star instead of him, heh.
I liked how Farmer wasn't afraid to show everyone's flaws, especially of characters that would only be too easy to set up as special (The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, a group of mutant detectives), and how all the characters could be particularly childish. And I liked how the author did show that Rita wasn't just a whiny kid sister, and the problems that underlaid Resthaven, a city devoted to living life traditionally. Tendai loves it, loves the tradition and the rightness of it, and yet, Rita is a girl, so she has to clean and wait to eat, etc. And I also loved how Farmer didn't simply swing the other way and showed that for Resthaven to exist, to have the tradition and the rightness, there would have to be the uglier elements as well.
I especially appreciated the setting in Africa and the use of some African mythology (or Farmer's version thereof) within, which pleased me immensely.
My one disappointment was that Tendai was the main POV character, and it's maybe a bit silly of me, but whenever there is a girl in the set of siblings (or friends, or group of people), I want it to be her story. So I wanted Rita, his little sister, to be the star instead of him, heh.
I liked how Farmer wasn't afraid to show everyone's flaws, especially of characters that would only be too easy to set up as special (The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, a group of mutant detectives), and how all the characters could be particularly childish. And I liked how the author did show that Rita wasn't just a whiny kid sister, and the problems that underlaid Resthaven, a city devoted to living life traditionally. Tendai loves it, loves the tradition and the rightness of it, and yet, Rita is a girl, so she has to clean and wait to eat, etc. And I also loved how Farmer didn't simply swing the other way and showed that for Resthaven to exist, to have the tradition and the rightness, there would have to be the uglier elements as well.