Book of a Thousand Days

Review: Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

306 pages

Age suggestion: middle school and up

Cultural references: Ancient Mongolia, Grimm's Fairy Tales

Recomended: Highly

Okay, I could not put this one down. Very compelling young heroine, Dashti, is a "mucker maid"--a peasant who has sworn to serve her "lady"--a member of the elite gentry in this pre-medieval story set in an imagined version of the Mongolian Steppes. Dashti and her lady are bricked up in a tower for seven years when the young lady refuses to marry the cruel lord her father has promised her to. Dashti must find a way to keep them alive in the face of starvation and poor treatment by gaurds. Eventually, the girls must find a way to escape the tower and make their way to the land of the lady's true love. Of course, our heroine finds love of her own along the way.

What is cool about this book is that while it is a kind of "princess in the tower" story, the "princesses" and "princes" do not fall into any preconceived stereotypes. I found the characterization and plotting fairly original, and the voice of the narrator, Dashti, is powerful and likeable.

Undoubtedly, girls will like this more than boys, but it is not an overly feminine book.

Highly recommended!