CM Magazine: Sea Change.

________________ CM . . . . Volume VI Number 12 . . . . February 18, 2000

Sea Change.

Linda Smith.
Saskatoon, SK: Thistledown Press Ltd., 1999.
328 pp., pbk., $9.95.
ISBN 1-895449-86-3.

Grades 6-9 / Ages 11-14.
Review by Betsy Fraser.

*** /4

excerpt:

"They are magicians in their own land, and have come here to learn our magic."
A startled murmer ran through the group, but Mir nodded. "So Captain Merrigale has told me. It is true, then? The men, as well as the girl, have magic?"
"They do. In Freya, it seems, men are born with magic."
More murmurs. One woman even took a step back, as though not wanting to be too close to such uncanny beings.

This, the second book in the Freyan Trilogy, finds the young wizard, Kerstin Speller, accompanying her father and another wizard to the Misty Isles. They are travelling to meet a group of nine Wise Women who practise a high form of magic and healing. Only one woman a generation is born with one of the nine healing powers, but the Wise Women have agreed to try and teach the Freyan wizards. Kerstin, one of the few female wizards in Freya, again finds herself an outsider, this time to the close knit Islanders and Wise Women. When a storm shipwrecks the Freyan sailors in the Misty Isles, the interaction between the outsiders and the men of the Misty Isles brings relations to a boiling point. Can Kerstin help them to fix their problems?

Freya and the Misty Isles are delightful places to visit. Kerstin is a well-rounded character who deals with her own problems and easily bruised teenage emotions in an entirely convincing manner. The plot is presented in such a way that the magical elements of the story provide momentum for the plot without requiring a great deal of explanation. A succinct summarization of the first book, Wind Shifter, means that this book can stand on its own.

Recommended.

Betsy Fraser is a librarian with Calgary Public Library.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - February 18, 2000.