Reviews for Taggerung (Redwall #14)

The average rating for Taggerung (Redwall #14) based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-01-07 00:00:00 Scott Mcmurrain I have always loved the Redwall series of books by Brian Jacques who uses animals for his tales and I bought every one the minute they came into the shops. 'Taggarund' is my favourite Why? It is different to the rest of the books and in my personal opinion a better read. The books are written primarily for young teen agers upwards and are always based on the good versus evil theme where good always wins out in the end but often at some cost. Shrews, weasels, rats, stoats and foxes tend to be always evil and the good creatures are mice, hedgehogs, moles, otters, badgers, hares and squirrels. Within the good versus evil as always, the author is never afraid to tackle some quite adult themes so there is hatred, violence, revenge, cowardice, murder and death but he counterbalances this with kindness, loyalty, trust, bravery love and even a touch of romance. There are no great battles this time. Instead there are three different plots within the story. The book begins with the first and most important plot. An evil vermin clan of creatures is searching for a mystical warrior named the 'Taggerund' whom they believe will bring them to great glory by defeating their enemies. Because of prophecies, they discover the creature they believe to be the chosen Taggerund is not of them but an otter babe and they kill his father and steal the babe who is brought up by the wicked chief of the clan as his own son. A problem they have though is that genes will out and the babe grows into a tough and strong warrior who has a heart and cares for others so he refuses to kill though commanded to by the clan chief. This means he has to escape the clan and the rest of the story involves all his many adventures in his quest to find his way back to his Mother and sister in Redwall. The second plot running through the story involves the cowardly creature Gruven, prompted by his ambitious Mother (who is determined that her son is the true Taggerund,) to set out with a few other members of the vermin clan to capture 'Tagg' and kill him. The third plot moves over to Redwall Abbey where there is no leader at this time. The story lightens with the author's usual gift of poetry and many references to the 'good life' the Redwallers have. There is much fun with 'the dibbuns' (the little ones) always into mischief, but this is the third plot line where Tagg's Mother still grieves for her stolen son. His sister, through a huge puzzle involving the whole Redwall community which has to be solved, grows from an immature young girl into a potential Mother Abbess. In the final part of the story The author doesn't have a huge battle as in other books in the series and he ties all the ends up peacefully with justice meted out to those who deserve it. Redwall readers will be aware that the character Tagg is in contrast to another character in a previous book entitled 'Outcast of Redwall. In that one the Redwall creatures saved a baby ferret from dying and brought him up, but true to his nature he was a disaster, always lying, stealing, bullying hurting and in the end he ran away and returned to his vermin clan. In the case of Tagg he stayed true to his essentially good nature in spite of being brought up with the vermin clan. This book is the better of the two though. It is beautifully written and the character of Tagg in particular is really well drawn. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of reading this book. It touched my heart many times and I recommend it to animal lovers young and old for some light reading and a lot of thoughtful themes about life for children to hopefully take on board.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-04-07 00:00:00 Brian Volpe This book was an especially enjoyable installment in the series, due to its noncomformity to the customary plots of Redwall. It was very useful to have at my veritable disposal whilst I battle the flippin' flu, wot?