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    Grayling's Song
    Grayling's Song
    Grayling's Song
    Audiobook5 hours

    Grayling's Song

    Written by Karen Cushman

    Narrated by Katherine Kellgren

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    It's time for Grayling to be a hero. Her mother, a "wise woman"-a sort of witch-has been turned into a tree by evil forces. Tangles and toadstools! Lacking confidence after years of being called "Feeble Wits" by her mother, Grayling heads off dubiously into the wilds in search of help, where she finds a weather witch, an aromatic enchantress, a cheese soothsayer, a slyly foolish apprentice, and a shape-shifting mouse named Pook!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 7, 2016
    ISBN9781501926679
    Author

    Karen Cushman

    Karen Cushman's acclaimed historical novels include Catherine, Called Birdy, a Newbery Honor winner, and The Midwife's Apprentice, which received the Newbery Medal. She lives on Vashon Island in Washington State. Visit her online at karencushman.com and on Twitter @cushmanbooks.

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    Reviews for Grayling's Song

    4/5

    32 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      There are many things I like about this book -- the medieval setting, the herbs, the Tyromancy and the papermaking and the the shapeshifting mouse companion. Altogether, many satisfying parts.The characters were hard to love. The way they talked to each other, and particularly to Pansy, while amusing in the use of period insult, was unkind. Does that make it more realistic? That there is frustrated yelling at each other and the road seems endless seems realistic, but if you constantly refer to a person as a useless lump of a girl, chances are good that she won't turn out well. Oh well, perfectly respectable, magical coming of age tale with unkind talk throughout.
    • 3/5
      Pleasant--very pleasant, comforting like rice pudding--with perhaps the least impressive antagonist of all time, a quasi-fellowship that contributes very little, some slight growth on the part of the protagonist, and a marvellous creation in little Pook (I'm guessing at spelling, as I "read" this via Audible) who contributes almost nothing to the plot, but who gets the best characterization.

      (Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
    • 5/5
      When healer Hannah Stone begins to be turned into a tree, she sends her daughter whom she previously referred to as "Feeble Wits" out into the world to find her spell book and save her. Grayling had never been far from the cottage, yet sent she was with only a basket of herbs and a song to save the day. As she travels, she finds out that magical folk everywhere have had spells cast on them to turn them to trees and their spell books taken. Grayling meets up with a shape-shifting mouse, Auld Nancy, her bumbling niece Pansy, an enchantress and a soothsayer of cheese to help her on her quest. Along the way, she finds herself the leader of the group, coming up with the plans and keeping everyone safe. Obstacle after obstacle slows them, but never quite beats them as they search for the way to turn back the tide of evil that has taken over the land. This coming-of-age story based in the Middle Ages has elements of humor and wit and characters you will come to either love or loathe. This 213 page novel would make for a nice discussion book for grades 4-5.
    • 4/5
      Cushman's gentle charm underlines the action!Hannah, Grayling Strong's mother, a wise woman is bewitched. As it seems are all the country's other enchanters. Having been magically rooted to the ground she is slowly turning into a tree. On top of that Hannah's grimoire (spell book) disappeared. Grayling is her mother's only hope. She must seek out others and try to find the answer. The trouble is that after years of being denigrated by her mother, Grayling is afraid of her own shadow. However, set forth she does. On her quest she is accompanied by a shape changing mouse Pook's attempts at shape changing are more often than not fraught with disaster. A lively and often humorous journey ensues. Grayling and Pook search for answers and find that magic is not the only answer. Heaps of action and mystery, Karen Cushman has once again turned in a stellar novel that both provokes and charms.A NetGalley ARC
    • 4/5
      Grayling is the daughter of a hedge witch, but she has no magic of her own, or at least, only a few little things she has learned from helping her mother. But Grayling's life is about to change: she comes home one day to find the cottage burned down, her mother's grimoire stolen, and her mother half turned into a tree. Grayling must go on a quest to find the missing grimoire and any magical folk who have not succumbed to the same leafy fate as her mother. Along the way, Grayling gathers together a motley group of traveling companions, faces many dangers, and learns that she is capable of more than she could ever have imagined.All of Karen Cushman's books are marked by careful research, keen insight, and gentle humor, and this book is no exception. All in all, I found it charming but not compelling: I sat it down for several days, read other things, and came back to it -- but I did come back. In fact, I'd like to hear more about Grayling, though I've never known Cushman to write a sequel. The ending is open enough to let readers gaze wistfully into Grayling's future, though all of the major plot threads are tied off. I'd recommend this book to fans of the author, as well as those who enjoy fantasy stories about common people in a medieval setting.