The Blue Sword (Newbery Honor Roll) - Softcover

Mckinley, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014130975X ISBN 13: 9780141309750

Publisher: Puffin, 2000

Synopsis

Read this modern classic of young adult fantasy from award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Robin McKinley

Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Free Hillfolk. When Corlath, the Hillfolk King, sees her for the first time, he is shaken--for he can tell that she is something more than she appears to be. He will soon realize what Harry has never guessed: She is to become Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and carry the Blue Sword, Gonturan, which no woman has wielded since the legendary Lady Aerin, generations past.

* "This is a zesty, romantic heroic fantasy with an appealingly stalwart heroine, a finely realized mythical kingdom, and a grounding in reality that enhances the tale's verve as a fantasy."--Booklist (starred review)

"McKinley knows her geography of fantasy, the nuances of the language, the atmosphere of magic . . . ."--The Washington Post

A Newbery Honor Book
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

About this title

Review:

Praise for The Blue Sword

* "This is a zesty, romantic heroic fantasy with an appealingly stalwart heroine, a finely realized mythical kingdom, and a grounding in reality that enhances the tale's verve as a fantasy." --Booklist, starred review

* "McKinley has reworked many familiar mythological motifs into a tale that is completely fresh; her spare and eloquent prose is sheer delight." --School Library Journal, starred review

"A new language, a new landscape, and a new people--all unforgettable!"--The Horn Book

"McKinley knows her geography of fantasy, the nuances of the language, the atmosphere of magic . . . ." --The Washington Post

"Any book that, at one point or another, reminded me of The Sheikh, Gunga Din, Islandia, and The Lord of the Rings can't be anything but a true original." --Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction

From the Back Cover:

When Harry Crewe's father dies, she leaves her Homeland to travel east, to Istan, the last outpost of the Homelander empire, where her elder brother is stationed.

Harry is drawn to the bleak landscape of the northeast frontier, so unlike the green hills of her Homeland. The desert she stares across was once a part of the great kingdom of Damar, before the Homelanders came from over the seas. Harry wishes she might cross the sands and climb the dark mountains where no Homelander has ever set foot, where the last of the old Damarians, the Free Hillfolk, still live. She hears stories that the Free Hillfolk possess strange powers -- that they work magic -- that it is because of this that they remain free of the Homelander sway.

When the king of the Free Hillfolk comes to Istan to ask that the Homelanders and the Hillfolk set their enmity aside to fight a common foe, the Homelanders are reluctant to trust his word, and even more reluctant to believe his tales of the Northerners: that they are demonkind, not human.

Harry's destiny lies in the far mountains that she once wished to climb, and she will ride to the battle with the North in the Hill-king's army, bearing the Blue Sword, Gonturan, the chiefest treasure of the Hill-king's house and the subject of many legends of magic and mystery.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 014130975X
• ISBN 13: 9780141309750
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288