The Arkadians

by Lloyd Alexander

Overview

Three unusual companions—one fantastic journey!

Lucian is on the run from a pair of murderous soothsayers. Joy-in-the-Dance knows magic and marvels, and is on a quest. Fronto is a poet-turned-donkey who wants to break the spell that turned him into an animal. The three of them join forces and set out through Arkadia—on an amazing trip that will change their lives.

“Master storyteller Alexander keeps the action brisk, packs the text with a riveting collection of weird characters, fantastic settings, plot twists, derring-do, heroes, villains, magic, prophecy, humor, shipwrecks, fires—what more could readers ask for?”—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140380736
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	09/30/1998
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.13(w) x 7.68(h) x 0.72(d)
Lexile:	780L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Born on January 30, 1924, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, storyteller Lloyd Alexander spent his childhood filling his imagination with fantasies about other lands and eras. For ten years of his writing career, Alexander wrote for adults, then changed gears and wrote fiction for young people. Lloyd Alexander has received a Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor Award, a National Book Award, and several IRA-CBC Children’s Choice Awards. He is also the author of many ALA Notable Children’s Books and School Library Journal Best Books of the Year.

Editorial Reviews

"A good, involving story. Readers already acquainted with Greek literature and legend will enjoy picking out familiar threads."--Publishers Weekly

"An expertly developed cast of characters rounds out this witty epic that's filled with romance and adventure. . . . On one level, this is a rousing adventure complete with cliffhangers and do-or-die stituations. On another, readers familiar with Greek mythology will find clever hints at the myths' purpose and genesis. . . . The plot has many twists and turns, but is not hard to follow, and Alexander's style is eminently readable."--School Library Journal

"Part Greek myth, part Canterbury Tales, part Wizard of Oz, Alexander's latest is also a story with a feminist sheen. Done in epic style, the book almost brims over with tales, twists, and trouble. . . . Alexander is as good as anyone when it comes to creating strong women characters, and one of the most interesting things about this book is his focus on the goddess culture and its role in both history and myth. A rousing tale ."--Kirkus Reviews

Lucian is about to be put to death, but he escapes and meets a mysterious spirited girl and a poet who has been enchanted and turned into a donkey. His adventures with kings, commoners and wise women makes for an engrossing, changing story of magic and faraway lands. -- Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher

Lucian flees corrupt palace officials in pre-classical Greece, his flight becoming a quest to discover his role in life. Soon, he's trying to help a second-rate poet turned donkey regain human form. Roaming the land, he also gets caught up in the great conflict between followers of the mother goddess and believers in the Olympian pantheon. Fortunately, he has the help of Joy-in-the-Dance, a young prophetess, in a relationship strikingly similar to that of Taran and Eilonwy in Alexander's five-volume Prydain Chronicles. And like the Prydain novels, this adventure draws heavily on a great body of myths and legends. Perhaps to accommodate the constraints of a single volume, Alexander relays many myths in comic, de-bunked forms-he shows poets transforming a clan of horse-riders into centaurs, a skilled mariner separated from his barmaid love into the epic hero Odysseus. Even with much of the raw material developed only minimally, the result is a good, involving story. Readers already acquainted with Greek literature and legend will enjoy picking out familiar threads. Ages 10-up. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 5-8-An expertly developed cast of characters rounds out this witty epic that's filled with romance and adventure. Lucian, the archetypal hero, knows more than he should about the king's nefarious soothsayers and must escape the palace or be killed. He takes with him Fronto, a poet whose folly has turned him into a donkey. Guided by Joy-in-the-Dance, a pythoness oracle who serves the Lady of Wild Things, they seek the Lady on an Oz-like journey for answers to their problems, joined on the way by Ops, a chief who was cast out of his village. The travelers do not get what they had hoped for from the Lady, but Lucian does learn why her followers and his Bear Clan are enemies. The seekers are then sent on another journey that completes the heroic cycle. On one level, this is a rousing adventure complete with cliffhangers and do-or-die stituations. On another, readers familiar with Greek mythology will find clever hints at the myths' purpose and genesis. The Arkadians have experiences and listen to tales that resemble the stories of Narcissus, the Wooden Horse of Troy, Odysseus, and Theseus and the Minotaur, among others. The women are the wise ones in this novel and play their own heroic roles. On a deeper level, this tale is about love and peace, symbolized by the marriage of Lucian and Joy-in-the-Dance and the subsequent uniting of the Bear Clan and the Followers of the Lady. Thus, Arkadia becomes the mythical Arcadia, which poets lauded as a utopia. The plot has many twists and turns, but is not hard to follow, and Alexander's style is eminently readable.-Cheri Estes, Dorchester Road Regional Library, Charleston, SC

School Library Journal