The Lost Years of Merlin
By T.A. Barron
Hi! Have you ever wondered what your childhood was like as a baby or when you were one or two years old? Well, Emrys wondered about all that. He could not remember when he was born, where, or what happened before he drifted away in the ocean to his home. A woman washed ashore with him. She claimed she was his mother and that his name was Emrys and her name was Branwen. But Emrys didn’t believe that his true name was Emrys, Branwen was his mother, or that her true name was Branwen. But he lived with her just the same.
Branwen had special healing powers, she had healing herbs and she had special chants that helped the people being healed not be so nervous. Emrys had special powers, too. He could make things move with his mind, he could make things come to life with his mind, and he could break things with his mind.
One day, Emrys got really angry at some boys because they were bullying him. So he went home and Branwen got onto them about it. But the next night, the bullies came in and the biggest bully wrestled with Branwen. He tied her up and laid her out in the middle of the road. And then the big bully who had wrestled Branwen (named Dinatus) started to make a fire. And then they started dragging Branwen towards the fire. Emrys wanted Dinatus to burn, so after he saved Branwen and cut off all of her ropes, he made the branch that was right above Dinatus on a tree crack. And then he was crushed beneath the tree, never to be seen again!
When Emrys realized what he had done, he ran into the flames to save Dinatus. Then, everything went black. He woke up and he realized a very sad thing – he was blind! But despite his blindness, he still wanted to learn more about his past. This anxiety grew so large that he decided to go on a quest to find out more about his past. And he decided that he would build a raft that he would travel on through the ocean. Now, you should know that, if you plan to travel across a very large ocean, you better have a big boat, not a small raft! But before he went on this journey, he prayed and asked that he could have his sight restored. He would even be willing to give away his powers for this.
The next morning when he woke up, he could slightly see. Even though he was still blind, he had a second sight. He worked on this second sight by going around the house and trying to see what objects were. As soon as his second sight got as strong as he thought it needed to be, he set off. There was a storm and he held onto his little raft with all of his might and ended up getting blown onto a huge piece of land and this part seemed to be a forest. This is when he found a bird struggling against the fight of the shifting wraith. A shifting wraith could change form into anything, like a sweet girl, for example. Of could change into a hungry lion. These shifting wraiths were evil and worked for Stangmar, friend of the evil one, Rithagawr. And so, the young bird was fighting against the shifting wraith with all its might, but without Emyrs’ help, it would not have survived. From that point on, the young bird, a merlin, clung to Emrys.
Soon, he met a girl named Ritha. She asked him to help save the land over Rithagawr’s evil plans. He wanted to control the world and his idea of a perfect world was filled with ruin and death.
Will Emrys accept the offer? Or will he keep on with his own quest? Will he help save the world? Or find out about his past childhood? As I always say, read the book to find out!
I recommend this book to readers who love action and excitement. This book was really good!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor):
There were a few scary parts, but none were too intense. Also there were a few bad words in this book, but you can just skip over them as if they weren’t there.
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor):
There was a little yucky-lovey stuff, but none involved kissing.
I give this book 5 wands.
I really loved it! It was just a little hard to get into with all of the secrets and things being kept from Emrys. I prefer for the information to be laid out for the reader. Even if the main character doesn’t know, I at least like to have a little hint about what’s going on. But I really loved it! It was full of action and excitement and those are two things I really love! I also loved some really great parts in this story, but I’m not going to mention them because you need to read them. I don’t want to give anything away!
