Grayling's Song by Karen Cushman

Junior Fantasy. Karen Cushman is one of my top authors. Her Newbery Medal award winning book, The Midwife's Apprentice is one of my favorites. I love the medieval time period descriptions and the depth of her characters. And so I was excited to dive into the middle ages with this book, Grayling's Song.

This one had fantasy elements in it, which was a change from her previous books. Grayling's mother is a wise woman and possesses some talent for healing magic. Even though Grayling loves her mother, she feels inferior because she doesn't think she has the talents of magic that her mother displays. One day she hears her mother's cries and finds that her mother is turning into a tree and her book of magic is gone. Grayling sets out on a quest to find the book and rescue her mother and others like her who are meeting the same fate. 

Grayling was a blah character. The best adjective I could find to describe her is milk-toast. The others she meets on her journeys are negative and surly. It isn't a long book and so I finished it, but it was a disappointment. I didn't find the medieval charm that fills Cushman's other books.

Recommend? No.