Janner stared at the lantern flame, his mind overwhelmed with information. It was hard to believe that beyond the walls of this dark burrow existed a world like the one Oskar described, a world of kings and powerful stones and dark enemies. It was even harder to believe that Janner was tangled up in that world like a dragonfly in twine. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to climb the ladder and breathe the fresh air, Fangs or no. (p. 131)

In an underground burrow that serves as a hiding place for outlaws in a rundown town, neglected by the elite and left to the “ghastly Fangs of Dang,” author Andrew Peterson recreates Plato’s Cave Allegory: by the light of the fire, while reading of the First Kingdom in the First Book, Janner Igiby and Oskar N. Reteep discover the world is wilder and wider and deeper than they’d ever known.

That, I’ve argued before, is what great literature does, and that’s what Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga does, and the second volume of that trilogy – North! Or Be Eaten, now available for purchase – even more than the first book. The conversation that ensues from this moment is an argument between a man who’s had adventure and has grown cynical, and another who believes in stories and knows it’s better to be free and suffering and living a legendary story than comfortable in a land ruled by evil.

Peterson invokes the fairy tale philosophy of Chesterton when Janner asks his mother why Leeli’s song gives him visions. “Is it magic?” he asks.

Nia smiled. “What’s magic, anyway? If you ask a kitten, ‘How does a bumblebee fly?’ the answer would probably be ‘Magic.’ Aerwiar is full of wonders, and some call it magic.” [...]

Oskar told them … “It is only when we have grown too old that we fail to see the Maker’s world is swollen with magic – it hides in plain sight in music and water and even bumblebees.” [...]

Nia: “The old stories call it magic. I call it beauty. I might even call it love.”

And that’s the interesting thing about this book. It’s not filled with magic in the way that a typical fantasy fiction book is – there are no wizards, spells, incantations, or magical curses. But Peterson constructs such a believable secondary creation with deep, mythic-level meaning that the story feels magical.

It’s also, as Tolkien said all good stories must be, a tale primarily about the Fall:

“When the city was bright, the children sang music that made flowers change color overnight. Other children wrote poetry that it was said raised great stone arches of city gates. Still others painted pictures that, when the child sang the right song or read the right tale, moved.” (p. 279)

But much like Narnia at the start of Prince Caspian, that magic has been largely lost, and is only found again in tales that most people in Aerwiar no longer believe in. Evil-as-dehumanization is a familiar theme to Potter fans, and a dehumanized army has laid waste the old magical kingdom.

The story conveys another powerful theme that many of us Potter fans are familiar with: symbolic death and resurrection. Janner’s experience in the Black Coffin alone is worth all the time invested in reading this book. North! Or Be Eaten is fantastic, start to finish, and far better than the first book of the series, which I liked quite a bit. But Janner’s period of trial in the factory where he is forced to be a slave, and in the days alone in the black coffin where he is punished for rebellion, touches the heart that has suffered and reminds us of the strength found on the other side.

In other words, Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, and this second book even more than the first, accomplishes what Tolkien called “the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires.” For this reason, I can’t recommend these books highly enough. This is great storytelling, with humor, tear-provoking moments, conflict, and recovery in all the right places. This is a story enjoyable for all ages, and as with the first novel, is fantastic when read out loud.

Thanks to Andrew Peterson and Water Brook Press for a review copy, and also for an extra copy to give away. Details on a Hog’s Head giveaway of North! Or Be Eaten to come in the next few days!

Tagged as: Andrew Peterson, North Or Be Eaten