Enjoy For Free The Hidden World Drafted By Alison Baird Released Through Text

read, a true page turner, Not a challenging read, but it was steeped in mythology and was an amazing middle grade novel, I loved it as a child and I still love it as an adult, Suspenseful and wonderful till the last page! Another "loved and adored as a kid" book, I read this book when I was in high school, and really enjoyed it, Especially considering I had to read it for school work, I just read it for a second time and it really is a great book,

It's a Canadian book, so it tickles the Canadian pride when you read about a town or city and have been there before.


There are things I didn't like, but only minor things I think the word"presently" is over used and overall it's a great story that ended far too quickly.
An okay portal fantasy set in Newfoundland, Nothing groundbreaking or especially memorable, but decent enough, Arthurian legend lovers only, lots of celtic stuff, little story, but not bad, I borrowed this book from my local library at the beginning of high school without knowing that there was a prequel to it.
If you read this one, or are reading it, and

having difficulty understanding some references, read the prequel and it will explain everything.
It's more like the first book than a prequel, but whatever, I've always enjoyed reading stories about faeries ever since I read OR Melling's work when I was a kid, and I'd have to say that Alison Baird comes very close to being on par with her.
And they're both Canadian, plus!,

This book was a very interesting reading experience for me, mostly because it is not a very popular read and it was interesting going into a book having not heard anything about it previously.


What I liked:

Reading a book set in Canada was really refreshing, I love that I got to learn a little bit about Newfoundland and its history through this book,
I love the main character's name, Maeve, A silly thing to mention Maybe, but true all the same,
I liked how a lot of the folklore I was familiar with was intertwined with lore and fantasy that I was unfamiliar with.
I'm not certain how much of the lore in this book was of the author's own making and how much was previously established, but I enjoyed the union of the familiar and unfamiliar all the same!

What I disliked:

The writing felt dated.
This book came out in the lates/earlys which normally wouldn't strike me as "old" especially since I loved the writing in Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic book I read last month, which was published earlier.
I think the writing style was just a bit simple and matteroffact for me, I like having things explained to me in a creative manner rather than a textbooklike manner throughout the entire narrative.

The excessive lore. Again, I did enjoy the lore in this book but there were many instances where it was just too much.
There was a glossary in the front of the book which explained the pronunciation of a bunch of the names and terms used in the story which was great and interesting, but there were just too many wordy info.
dumps within the story for me to stay interested in the storyline, This short book took me much longer to read because bits like this made me hesitant to pick the book up time after time.

The plain plot. The plot was a very simple very plain story, I did enjoy it but it just felt like nothing interesting was really happening until the lastof the book.
Would have liked some more build up,
Characters were fairly bland, The characters were just as simple as the plot and I think some more character building moments earlier on in the story would have made this more enjoyable.


All in all I'm not very interested in picking up more from this author, I think her simplistic approach to writing characters and plot made this a bit too boring for me, Maeve is disgruntled and depressed when she is sent for the summer to her aunt's house in Newfoundland while her parents try to work out problems in their marriage and careers.
But she does enjoy Newfoundland's rustic charms and the closeness she feels there to her favourite grandmother, now dead, Maeve's grandmother was the author of a fantastic book about the secret world of Annwn and Maeve is delighted to discover her grandmother's diary and a beautiful Celtic brooch that was stored with it.
Then something strange begins to happen, something that convinces Maeve she is leaving Newfoundland, and in no ordinary fashion, Before long, Maeve finds herself in the Hidden World, a place she is sure her grandmother has visited too, a place that is alive with magic and danger.
As she struggles to help her newfound friends in Annwn and unravel the mystery of her grandmother's time there, she finds herself immersed in a world of legend, where Celtic myths, tales of the sea and the secrets of Avalon come together in a fantastic and horrifying way.
You usually hear from my generation that they got into reading because of Harry Potterbut for me it was this book.
This book really takes me to another world, I read this book in junior high, and soon forgot most of the important details, What stayed with me was that it was filled with rich imagery of the foggy and mysterious coast of Newfoundland.
I remembered that it was my first introduction to the somewhat dark "fairy world" of Celtic legends and mythology, which in the story lived on in an alternate, more real version of our world, and that the protagonist's name began with M.
Armed with this information, I tried unsuccessfully to track this book down for a long time, Finally got a hold of it last week, and I was afraid it would be like other disappointing revisits of things that once fascinated me, like rewatching All Dogs Go to Heaven.
Turns out it was almost as captivating as the first time I read it, and it was quite fun to "walk around" in that story again and recognize things as I went along.

I would say that the characters could use more depth I did not really feel much for any of them, except that I think the true protagonist is not Meave, but the mythology itself.
There is a lot more feeling and attention given to this rich tradition of stories, how it interacts and compares with religions and ideologies, how it is affected by current problems and how it continues to influence the lives of people who believe it and those who don't.

Therefore, while I found the plot and characters slightly lacking, the setting and the history were wonderful, The pronunciation guide was interesting and helpful, but there were still so many words that I had to skim over without getting to "hear" how they sounded.



I'm glad I found this book again, the book was intriguing, captivating and interesting, its totally a hidden world, More like a.for the way that ending hit me,

Portal fantasies are a hard one to execute well, and I felt like this one was handled with care and precision.
The magic, the way the worlds blended into each other was rather seamlessly done in my opinion,
The story was rich in the lore of several cultures and their history, myths, and legends, and though there was often a great deal of time taken from the story to describe these, I enjoyed the connections that were made to our world and its tales, both the factual and the imagined.


It was magical and filled with wonder, which always makes for a good story in my opinion,

P. S. I did very much enjoy that this was written by a Canadian and that the story was in the beginning and parts throughout set in Canada, with Canadian references.
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time, The way Baird seamlessly integrates presentday Newfoundland with Avalon is simply stunning, The prose flows along wonderfully, and the story is great, I definitely recommend this book! This is a story of a girl who's not so special in this world, even bullied but is special and well liked in a parallel universe.


I found the mythology hard to follow in this story and I don't think the Gaelic or Celtic words enhanced the story for me.
I also found the climax a little flat and boring, Loved this book even though it's aimed at younger readers, If you like stories with a Celtic theme you may want a read of this one, Alison Baird has blended all these different aspects of Celtic history and mythology into this parallel world, Fabulous. I revisited this book, which I loved dearly in my youth, and found that it aged wellgranted, I have a soft spot for Celtic mythology.
This book is beautifully written, and while more geared towards adolescents in storyline, the writing is well developed, I enjoyed journeying with Maeve on her grand adventures, watching her face her fears and grow, Alison Baird is a resident of Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and a graduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto, where she earned her Honours B.
A. in English and her M, A. degree. As an author she had an early start, publishing her first poems when she was, Inher first book, The Dragons Egg, was published by Scholastic Canada: it was a national bestseller and a Regional Winner of the Silver Birch Award a childrens choice award.
It is now featured on school curricula across the country, The Hidden World and White as the Waves: A Novel of Moby Dick, both published in, were Canadian Childrens Book Centre Our Choice selections, and White as the Waves was shortlisted for the IODE Violet Downey Book Award.
The Wolves of Wode Alison Baird is a resident of Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and a graduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto, where she earned her Honours B.
A. in English and her M, A. degree. As an author she had an early start, publishing her first poems when she was, Inher first book, The Dragon's Egg, was published by Scholastic Canada: it was a national bestseller and a Regional Winner of the Silver Birch Award a children's choice award.
It is now featured on school curricula across the country, The Hidden World and White as the Waves: A Novel of Moby Dick, both published in, were Canadian Childrens Book Centre "Our Choice" selections, and White as the Waves was shortlisted for the IODE Violet Downey Book Award.
The Wolves of Woden, the prequel to The Hidden World, followed inand was featured in Resource Links Magazines “Best of.
” Bairds next project for Penguin was the The Witches of Willowmere also a CCBC “Choice”, volume one of the “Willowmere Chroncles.
” Inher adult fantasy novel, The Stone of the Stars, and its two sequels were sold to Warner Aspect through the Sternig Byrne literary agency and were published inand.
The Stone of the Stars received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, Baird's short fiction has appeared in On Spec magazine, a Canadian periodical of original science fiction and fantasy for adults.
Her story "Dragon Pearl" received an Honourable Mention in theedition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror published by St.
Martin's Press. Another short story, "Moon Maiden," appeared in the acclaimed young adult anthology What If, Amazing Stories Selected by Monica Hughes Tundra Books,, which was an ABA Kids Pick of the Lists forand was featured on the New York Public Librarys Recommended List.
"Moon Maiden" has since been reprinted in two Canadian school readers, and is available in an audio version from Prentice Hall.
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