When England’s Henry VIII goes on an all-out hunting spree for beavers, a group of survivors retreat to a secret Scotland location. To survive, the beavers set a rule of never let a human see any of them. On the day a young beaver is surprised and scared by a ghost human rising from the lodge floor, Dunwattle flees so far that for the first time in over 500 years, a live human sees a beaver. In this story of talking animals, Lasky’s tale starts with many jerky movements: each and every bit of the Glendunny world needs explanatory information, so it takes a long time of getting background explanations finished before the story gets to a story. The main characters are beavers, but their reactions can be quite human: disdain or active dislike toward immigrants, grabs for governmental power. Other animals are Elsinor the swan who delivers trusted advice and aerial surveillance and the lynxes used as henchmen for threatening violence or murdering on command. Regular readers of fantasy will be used to believing in a fantastical story but anyone with actual Great Britain geographic knowledge will be continually annoyed with the inconsistencies of location, for example a swan takes many hours to fly from Glendunny to the Scottish/English border but only one hour more to London.

Recommend for grades 5-8

Reviewed by Betsey Noble, Dresden Elementary School