MartinIn a time of danger A time of hunger The mouse was a stranger The mouse was strong He showed the cats With help from some bats How to behave He showed his pain, anger, and strife The creatures were thankful As a matter of fact He was honored for not only a life But for many years to comeThe novel, Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques, is a book about a young mouse warrior named Martin, son of Luke the Warrior, a mouse that fought sea rats, One day, after the murder of most of his tribe (including his wife), Luke set sail to have his revenge against Vilu Daskar, the stoat pirate responsible for the massacre.
Before he left, he gave Martin his sword, which had been handed down through their family since Luke’s own grandsire lived. This book is about how Martin travels through a land full of moles, squirrels, and other woodland creatures which talk and walk upright. Martin goes around meeting creatures from all different lands and asks them to join his army to fight a tyrant who is keeping slaves in his fort, Marshank. The plot of this book is how Martin and his friends fight the tyrant, Badrang, to free slaves. The main idea of the book is how and why Martin and his army fight the tyrant.
When Martin was captured as a slave for Badrang the Tyrant, he was furious. Not only did the evil rat steal his father’s sword, he beat and mistreated all of the slaves horribly! Devising a plan, Martin frees himself and two of his friends from the Marshank, the slave camp: Brome the mouse and Felldoh the squirrel. Brome’s sister, Laterose (Rose for short) and her companion Grumm the mole all set out with Martin and his friends to go get help from their hometown of Noonvale. Unfortunately, due to the sea’s conditions, Martin, Rose, and Grumm get separated from Brome and Felldoh. The two strings of the story carry on and tie together at the end: Martin’s group eventually reaches Noonvale, where he returns to Badrang to get his revenge, and Brome and Felldoh join the Rambling Rosehip Players, a bunch of happy-go-lucky animals that made the hardships less hard, and also get to the slave camp. The ending is tragic, and whenever I read it I get depressed.
Martin, in the end, retrieves his sword from Badrang, and succeeds in killing him, but Rose, who he has become very much attached to, tries to help Martin in killing Badrang, but only ends up getting killed by him herself. Also, Felldoh died toward the end– he had fought Badrang one-on-one but the lousy cheater called his army to help him. Felldoh, being a great warrior, killed many of Badrang’s men but did not kill Badrang himself. Brome still lived, but found he did not like war, so he became a healer. Some of the characters that Martin encountered along his travels changed from being his enemies to being his allies.
The creatures changed when Martin was off to go fight the tyrant and when he and his friends asked them to which to join fight the tyrant so he could not capture any more creatures for his slaves and makes his horde any more powerful. Sometimes it did not seem believable because of how they turned from enemies to allies instantly and why they joined without even knowing who Badrang the tyrant was. I felt like I had a similar relationship when Martin was leading his army into battle. I have this feeling when I’m a captain of my basketball team and I have the partial responsibility of leading them to victory or defeat.
I thought that the best scene in the book was when Martin’s army attacked the tyrant’s fort for the second time. It reminds me about whenever I lead or am a part of an activity of some sort, like basketball or tennis. I think that the title, Martin the Warrior, is fitting because it’s simple and it tells what the book is about. I liked the author’s style of telling what was going on in the book and how he described it.
He made it feel like you were actually there. The story made me feel good in the end, when Martin’s army defeated the tyrant. I liked this because I love the feeling of victory.
