Thirteenth Child

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C Wrede

 

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Press (April 15, 2009)
ISBN-10: 054503342X

Product Description          Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent -- and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild.

First off let me say that I picked this book to read for two reasons:  one is for the "magic" and the other was because I had read other books by this author  (along with Caroline Stevermer called Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot) and enjoyed them so much I thought I would give her a try on her own.

I can tell you right off the bat that I am glad I sent for this book.

The Thirteenth Child is indeed about Eff who is a twin to Lan (who is the seventh son of the seventh son) and the thirteenth child in the family.

In the very beginning you meet Eff and Lan as very  young children (pre-school age) and you meet an uncle who makes Eff feel awful about herself because she is supposedly the bane of the family, since she is the 13th child,  and had no business being alive. And how Lan is their savior being born the 7th son of a 7th son.  It's easy to see the lesson to be learned early into this story when Eff's mother says, "I can see plain enough that an angel straight from heaven itself would grow up crooked if she was watched and chivvied and told every morning and every night that she was sure to turn evil, and I can see equally plain that fussing and fawning over a child that hasn't even learned his numbers yet, as if he were a prince of power and wisdom, will only grow him into a swell-headed, stuck-up scarecrow of a man, who like as not will never know good advice when he hears it, nor think to ask for it when he needs it."

The family moves away in hopes of finding some peace within the family away from tormentors like the uncle and give all the children a chance to become whatever it is that is their destiny.

Every so often the book jumps a few  years as you follow Eff and Lan (and the whole family) thru the life they have chosen in the frontier. 

This is really a well written YA book.  When I am reading it I find I get right into the book and feel as if I am there living the life along with the entire family.  You genuinely get to know how Eff feels about herself as she grows older and almost feel as if the "frontier" is real. (of course, maybe that's just me heh)  One thing that is done to make the frontier more believable is that the author uses some real and some fictional places and creatures.  While there may be buffalo's in the frontier, so are there woolly mammoths, and insects the likes of which have never been seen.

The book ends when Eff and Lan are 18 yrs old.  It basically comes to a conclusion, but if for no other reason than there is many more years for these children to have adventures, that they will be back in another book. The other, very broad hint, is that the entire title to the book reads like this:  Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic Book).. heh, yup.. there will be more from Patricia C Wrede concerning the Frontier Magic.

  Thus concludes the fifth and final book for Once Upon a Time. (Quest the First)