
The Wind Singer by William Nicholson
The Wind Singer is a children's novel and so comes with all the pluses and minuses of that genre. The pace is quick with little room or time for digression or a lot of descriptive detail. The upside is that the book never once bogs down and keeps pulling the reader along. The downside, though how much of a downside will mostly depend on age and expectations, is that characterization suffers a bit and there are a few places where it would have been nice to have gotten a more full picture (both visually and in terms of plot context/background).
The story is a typical kids' dystopia but with more of a fantasy cast rather than a sci-fi one which is often the case. The city of Amaranth is the dystopia in question. Within its walls the people are strictly divided into castes (denoted by clothing color as well as assigned houses) based on their yearly performances on the "hig... Read More