Intro

If you are anything like me, then you prefer to read the book of something before watching the movie or the TV series. For the most part, I have been successful in doing this with a few exceptions. I know I didn’t read all of the comics before watching the Marvel movies, and I definitely didn’t read the Twilight books before watching the first movie with my wife. Being totally honest, I don’t have any desire to go back and read those books.

Where possible, I do enjoy reading the book first even though at times it can feel like they didn’t get something right when it came to the film version because that’s not how I pictured it in my mind when I read it. It is easy to see the actors on the screen and how things are portrayed, and then when I go back to the book afterward, I find that the way that I see the characters has been influenced by what is shown on the screen and not just what I can see in my imagination.

This was the driving reason for me to get started with The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. I had seen the show advertised by Angel Studios. Since I have been following the Tuttle Twins for a while, I come across mentions of The Wingfeather Saga frequently. Knowing that I had a whole season of episodes to watch, I knew that all I had to do was get the book, read it, and then I would be able to watch the show that I had been wanting to watch. Additionally, Peterson is a Christian, and his writing demonstrates as such. It is always encouraging to find someone else who is very open about his faith.

There’s no better reasoning as to why I wanted to read this series, but wanting to watch the series was enough for me. I guess that means that my next book will have to be Where the Crawdads Sing. Rachel read this book months ago and absolutely fell in love with it. When she saw that the movie was coming out, she got so excited. I know that we are going to go see that movie once it comes out, so I guess I better get reading then.

Summary – Contains Spoilers

This book follows the three Igiby children as they try to live their lives to the best of their abilities in the small town of Glipwood. This town has been overrun by the Fangs of Dang, reptilian creatures sent by Gnag the Nameless to find the Jewels of Annieria.

Throughout the book, we see Janner, the oldest of the children as he tries to step up to the role of protector for his siblings Tink and Leeli despite the fact that they keep going on more adventures seemingly without regard to safety. This puts Janner in a tough spot especially when Leeli gets captured. After a short scuffle with one of the Fangs, they spend the night in prison where they await their trip on the Black Carriage.

Unknown to them, their family has some precious jewelry that their mom uses to bribe her children’s captors. All seems to be going well until the jewelry is inspected closer and it is found that they might be harboring a secret. This turns to be a bigger deal than any of them were expecting, and soon they find themselves in conflict with the Fangs of Dang and after a brief skirmish, they realize that it is only going to be a matter of time before the full wrath of Gnag the Nameless is released on them, so they pack up their things to flee.

They go to gather weapons before they are trapped by the approaching hordes of Fangs. After much fighting, and a long night trapped in the basement, they know that they must soon be on their way. Before they can get much on their way, they stop at Pete the Sockman’s treehouse for food and better rest. It is here that they learn that many of the things that they thought they knew were lies, and there is much more to their story than any of them remembered.

Review

This was an enjoyable book, and I gave it five stars. It was very easy to follow the story, and there was a wide range of characters which helped to move the story along. These characters were aided by the fact that they each had different mannerisms when it came to the speech. It helped to bring the book together and give the characters more dimension than they would have had without these variations in their speech patterns.

Sometimes, I realize that these differences in speech can be jarring, and can be difficult to read, but I didn’t notice that with this book. Everything flowed well together and there were no problems understanding what was going on through the use of dialogue.

This book was very clean and family friendly. It would be a good story to read together with children which helps to make this book even better. There are many fight scenes where the fangs die, so be warned about that, but for the most part this was a very family-friendly book.

Though it is written for children, I found it enjoyable and think that many adults would be able to read and enjoy this book in addition to their children.

Conclusion

In the end, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good adventure novel, especially one that is clean and doesn’t have lots of bad words or the more adult topics.

Now that I have finished the first book, I have every intention of reading the other books in the series as well. It shouldn’t be too long then before I allow myself to finally watch the TV version of this series. I just have to read Where the Crawdads Sing first to please me wife.

What about you? Do you prefer to read the books first, or would you rather just skip the books and jump straight into watching it? Please let me know in the comments which you prefer.