Chalice

Chalice

Author: Robin McKinley

ISBN: 0399246762

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile, 2008

Age: 9 and up

Genre: Fantasy

Summary: Mirasol is a beekeeper.  She tends her small woodlot in an obscure corner of Willowlands, and looks after her bees.  The earthlines speak to her, but this is not unusual; they speak to many members of the old families.  The concerns of Master, Chalice, and their Circle, who govern Willowlands, are nothing to do with her, although the rumors of this Master’s wildness, and his Chalice’s inability to bind him with their Circle, are troubling.  And then the Master and Chalice die in a fire – and Willowlands is thrown into chaos, for the Master and Chalice left no heir to take their places.  The Circle sends for the Master’s younger brother who was training with the priest of Fire, but because of his years with them he is no longer quite human.  Mirasol hears the news and fears for the future of Willowlands, but she is preoccupied with her own difficulties: her goats are fountaining milk, and her bees are producing so much honey it is pouring out of their hives.  And then the Circle comes to her cottage to tell her that she is to be the new Chalice, and it will be up to her to bind the land and its people with a Master the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone.

Read A-likes: The Blue Sword; Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits; Pegasus; Dragonhaven; and Sunshine.

Personal Thoughts: This book, while very good and well written, was very hard to get through, and I wonder about the ability of teens to stick it out.  This is an older tween book, but was very interesting and well done.  I would only give it to kids that had a very high reading level and a tolerance and determination to stick to a book even when it doesn’t grip them immediately.