I admit, I was not enthusiastic about Down the Mysterly River at all. A story about a Boy Scout and his animal friends sounded trite and a little old fashioned. (Not “retro” like big plastic eyeglasses or something – “Old fashioned” like dusty butterscotch candies).
And, let’s face it. I’m still generally not excited to read YA novels. There are some that bridge generations of readers and are incredibly well done, but there are many more that are frustratingly condescending.
I took out Down the Mysterly River on the train to a work event. Then I kept sneaking a few pages here and there every time I ran to the ladies room or during a break. Read it on the train home. Laying on the couch after dinner. Then laid around in bed all day the next day (a rainy Saturday – perfect day for lazy reading) finishing it up.
So, yeah. It’s a good book.
That’s actually an understatement. Down the Mysterly River is an amazing book, the kind of thing I want to throw at every middle school boy looking for a character to identify with and emulate who isn’t Harry Potter.
Max the Wolf, who has the distinction of being a Boy Scout and a Boy Detective wakes in an unknown wood with no memory of how he got there. He immediately falls in the Banderbrock (the bravest badger soldier), Walden (the friendly but inept sheriff bear), and McTavish (a huge, ill-tempered cat who is king of everything, as cats are wont to be), who also don’t recall how they arrived in the woods. In pursuit of the band are Blue Cutters, men and women who use blue swords to revise people.
This could all very easily have run afoul and become the old fashioned, trite thing I’d been expecting, but Bill Willingham keeps it from going there. He never over simplifies or condescends or over explains. And, by the end, he’s tackled the nature of creativity and that fight that so many kids are constantly waging: the fight to remain who they are.
So, if you’re that relative who is forever buying books for the kids in your life, get them this one.
Review copy provided by Tor
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