Mattimeo: Redwall, Book 3

The Redwall books remain magical, exciting stories, loved by everyone. With an emphasis on excitement, humour, kindness and love, they are excellent introductions to fantasy for children, as readers or for adults to read to younger children. Thoroughly recommended.

very good book. I love this series. I think this book is good for an age group of 9-12. There are some gruesome bits in the war scenes, but nothing disturbing or too upsetting.

My 9 year old son has been really enjoying this series. It's great on the kindle as his room is overflowing with books as it is!

My son is enjoying this he's off the computer a bit now at least

This was a great read for a young boy beginning to advance into longer and more convoluted stories. Plenty of action and pace.

Thumbs up!

brilliant read

After being underwhelmed by the previous two instalments of this series, I was pleased to find that Mattimeo was a breath of fresh air. However, it should be noted that this book is a direct sequel to Redwall, set "eight seasons" after this instalment. Due to this, I'd probably recommend at least reading Redwall first if you want to fully appreciate it.The narrative this time is split into three parts. One follows Mattimeo - son of Matthias - as he and some young friends are kidnapped by slavers. One follows Matthias and a select group of adults who are following Mattimeo's trail. The third is focused on the events that befall Redwall itself during this adventure, as a cruel raven tries to take over the abbey in Matthias's absence. While previous books often showed different perspectives through alternating chapters, the action this time frequently flittered within the same chapter. Personally, I did prefer this as it gave the novel a much faster pace.The setting of the novel this time also felt a lot more personal. While previous books focused on large scale assaults, this time the focus was primarily on a father trying to rescue his son. For me, this really was the heart of the story. While I was never overly invested in General Ironbeak's attack on Redwall, Matthias and Mattimeo's story has a lot of heart. It focused on the importance of hope in dark times and the depth of love that parents have for their children.While a majority of the story is given over to the adventure, it does culminate in a tense and brilliantly paced battle in the eerie temple / ruin. Unfortunately, while I did find this climax to be excellent, I was less impressed by the overly convenient way that the General Ironbeak situation was resolved in Redwall. While I won't spoil this for you here, it did feel like a bit down to coincidence rather than the ingenuity of the abbey dwellers.I also felt that there did not really feel to be any kind of grand final battle with any of the the villains. On the whole this time, the villains of this novel were a lot stronger than those of previous instalments. Slagar had legitimate motivation for wanting revenge against Matthias, Malkariss was pretty terrifying and General Ironbeak felt like a realistic threat for the largely peaceful abbey dwellers. However, none of the characters this time were actually defeated by a major character. This was a bit disappointing, as the show downs against Cluny and Lady Tsarmina were some of the most dramatic scenes in previous instalments.I also felt that some of the characters still felt a little shallow. With some notable exceptions, such as Basil Stag Hare, the large cast of Mattimeo were not terribly well fleshed out. As with previous instalments, the characters are largely divided into the "Good" creatures (mice, hares, otters, badgers etc.) and the "Bad" creatures (foxes, weasels, rats, ferrets etc.). While I was pleased to see that the female characters were given more to do in this novel, I still find that the colourful villains are a lot more memorable than the core cast.Anyhow, that's all that I really have to say. On the whole, I did really enjoy this instalment and am certainly looking forward to seeing where Jacques will take the story next.