The Butcher Birds: Lloyd Alexander, "The Kestrel"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I recently read a q&a with two authors in which one of them, Rachel Manija Brown, was asked for recommendations of books on post-traumatic stress.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2014\/12\/the-butcher-birds-lloyd-alexander-the-kestrel.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Butcher Birds: Lloyd Alexander, "The Kestrel"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently read a q&a with two authors in which one of them, Rachel Manija Brown, was asked for recommendations of books on post-traumatic stress.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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{"id":9359,"date":"2014-12-29T12:13:45","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T16:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=9359"},"modified":"2014-12-29T12:13:45","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T16:13:45","slug":"the-butcher-birds-lloyd-alexander-the-kestrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2014\/12\/the-butcher-birds-lloyd-alexander-the-kestrel.html","title":{"rendered":"The Butcher Birds: Lloyd Alexander, “The Kestrel”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I recently read a q&a with two authors<\/a> in which one of them, Rachel Manija Brown, was asked for recommendations of books on post-traumatic stress. She\u2019s written some really clear & useful posts<\/a> on the subject, so I was interested in what she\u2019d say\u2013and especially intrigued when she cited a children\u2019s fantasy novel as \u201cone of my favorite depictions of how war can make people completely lose their minds, and how some of them come back from that and some don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d read a couple of the Prydain Chronicles in my day, but none of the Westmark novels. The Kestrel<\/em> is the middle book of a trilogy, but it stands just fine on its own I think. It\u2019s a brisk novel which takes place in one of those crypto-European countries with recognizable morality but no religion. (That genre convention is a bit sleazy when you think about it.) The characters range from beggar children to noblemen; there are journalists and turncoats, soldiers and partisans. Lots of simplified but still intriguing politics and economics, lots of romance, some republican propaganda. The plot rattles along fast and comes together with a very satisfying collision at the climax. This book ends on a note of ambiguity, without resolution, which is one reason I liked reading it on its own, without the first and last books in the trilogy.<\/p>\n

Alexander fairly programmatically constructs and then dismantles the romantic image of war. In a way, that dismantling is the real plot-arc of the book, the spine connecting its various characters and events. It\u2019s an excellent novel; and yes, it\u2019s a bit of a children\u2019s guide to PTSD.<\/p>\n

Will it \u201cmake\u201d a kid anti-war? Ah, I have no idea how kids read books. When I was little I loved this book about Mary, Queen of Scots; the narrator was a preteen, I think, and he betrayed or in some way failed the queen he loved, and spent the next several months drunk and miserable. And what I took away from this was, \u201cAdmirable people you overidentify with totally use self-destructive drinking to express and expiate guilt! NOTE THIS DOWN FOR LATER.\u201d Portrayals of damage, or models for \u201chow to be damaged,\u201d can have their own attraction.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"