{"id":33302,"date":"2016-09-29T06:30:57","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T17:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33302"},"modified":"2016-09-27T22:17:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T09:17:21","slug":"recommended-reading-dragonfly-song-by-wendy-orr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/09\/29\/recommended-reading-dragonfly-song-by-wendy-orr\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading: “Dragonfly Song” by Wendy Orr"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dragonfly-song\"<\/a>Sometimes you read a book that bowls you over — for me, Dragonfly Song<\/em> by Wendy Orr (author of Nim’s Island<\/em> among many other titles) is definitely one of those books.<\/p>\n

Dragonfly Song\u00a0<\/em>is Junior fiction and what I would describe as “legendary history”, i.e. it draws on what we know of real history, but also invokes the stuff of legends, in this case those of Bronze Age Greece\/Crete, and includes at least a hint of magic.<\/p>\n

The book tells the story of Aissa, the daughter of a priestess-queen who is cast out at birth and must learn to survive in life’s school of hard knocks. Later, she is selected by lot as a tribute to the Minoan kingdom of Crete where she must learn to “dance with the bulls” — or die.<\/p>\n

The story is well written and well researched, but what makes it special is the “voice” and character of Aissa. I also loved the way the story is told, in a mix of prose and poetry — or at least prose that is poetic in form.\u00a0 It’s also a book with a great deal of what I call “heart”, which comprises both the integrity of the characters and the emotional depth of the story.<\/p>\n

In short, I think Dragonfly Song<\/em> is wonderful: I loved it.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy historical fiction by writers such as Rosemary Sutcliff or Gillian Bradshaw, or fantasy works such as those by Patricia McKillip, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass<\/em>, or my own Thornspell<\/em>, then you may enjoy Dragonfly Song<\/em>, too.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"dragonfly-song\"<\/a>Additional Information:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I read the AU\/NZ paperback edition, 393 pp, published by Allen & Unwin (2016.) I purchased my own copy rather than reading one made available by the publisher or author.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes you read a book that bowls you over — for me, Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr (author of Nim’s Island among many other titles) is definitely one of those books. Dragonfly Song\u00a0is Junior fiction and what I would describe as “legendary history”, i.e. it draws on what we know of real history, but also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33302"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33308,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302\/revisions\/33308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}