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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
EAN num: 9780141310688
ISBN number: 0141310685
Label: Puffin
Manufacturer: Puffin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 192
Printing Date: January 14, 2002
Publishing house: Puffin
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 278663
Studio: Puffin
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This winner of the American Book Award, which was also named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, begins Alexander's classic fantasy trilogy. When apprentice Theo prints a pamphlet for a traveling showman, it sets off a chain reaction that results in the murder of his master. Theo flees and teams up with the showman and Mickle, a strong-willed girl with a mysterious past.
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Rated by buyers 
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The very first time I read this novel, I really couldn't get into it that much and considered it inferior to the author's other series, The Prydain Chronicles. I was wrong; this trilogy stands among the very best of young adult literature and I wish it were included in the reading lists of English classes.
Westmark is a country where the king has lost his will to live due to the believed premature death of his daughter, Augusta, and Carabbus (the chief minister) has surreptitiously taken over. My firs thought was that this sounds a bit like "The Two Towers" where Grima Wormtongue speaks for the possessed King Theoden. Carabbus has instituted a reign of terror and there is great discontent amongst the military, peasantry, and nobility of the realm.
Entering into this volatile mix is Theo, a printer's devil (assistant) who witnesses the cold-blooded murder of his master at the hands of Royal Guards and questions his pacifist stance after falling in with Count Las Bombas, a rogue; Musket, a warriorlike dwarf, and the mysterious Mickle, a street urchin.
The book is a young adult primer on the psychology of war and its justification; violence is seen through the eyes of those who inflict it and those who suffer from it. The writing is sparse and much of the detail found in The Prydain Chronicles is gone, however, that does not diminish the book's characterizations.
I highly recommend this book and its two sequels, The Kestrel and The Beggar Queen.
Rated by buyers -
Westmark (Firebird) I used this book twice now. The very first time was in a 6th grade LA class and most recently in a 5th grade Junior Great Books Group. All 7 of my (JGB)students loved the book. The description of the characters & setting is excellent and they loved the ending. Alexander shows a great sense of humour and keeps the reader in suspense until everything comes together in a surprise ending.
Rated by buyers -
Lloyd Alexander has to be one of the best fantasy authors, ever. I have yet to read a book of his that isn't wonderful and doesn't bring up some moral or thought-provoking issue in a fun, interesting way.
"Westmark" is the very first in his trilogy of the same name. Westmark is a fast read and focuses on Theo, a printer's apprentice, who finds himself in the underground rebellion against the chief minister when his master is murdered by the chief minister's men. With his trademark dry wit, great characterization and plot development, Alexander introduces us to several characters who will play an important rule in the future of the kingdom of Westmark.
The moral questions that Theo will struggle with throughout the series are introduced in Westmark. Is violence ever okay? If change is needed, what is the best way to set it in motion? Is mercy a good thing or is it just being weak? These are just lightly touched on, but foreshadow the questions and ideals that Theo will be facing throughout the other books.
A good introduction to the trilogy and one that could even be read as a stand-alone. I'm eager to finish the rest of the trilogy to see how the characters grow and resolve their questions.
Rated by buyers 
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The main character Theo is in big trouble. The book starts out with Theo in his masters print(he is the printers devil)shop. One day they get a huge order and start working on it. Just as soon as they almost get done with the printing order, Two government guards come in and hit Theo right in the stomache. His master helped both of them exscape(by fighting the guards off). Once they get far away the master makes Theo go a seprate way and to run off, but theo finds the person who gave them the order, Los Bommas and his dwarf guard Musket. Theo pleads for his help and he finally helps him but they soon find out that the evil Chief Minister Cabbarus has killed Theo's master. He will be soon to find out that Cabbarus has an evil plan that involves theo and the Los Bommas.
Rated by buyers 
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I just finished reading this entire series of books (Westmark, The Kestrel, The Beggar Queen) and thus now feel the need to review them. I started reading the very first book a year and a half ago, and it has taken me this long to get around to reading the last one. It's not that I'm a slow reader; on the contrary, I just didn't like the books enough that I was in any hurry to get through them all. I realise that I am a lone voice here in criticising these books, but I just don't think they lived up to the hype. Their subject matter is war and revolution, two things I have more than a passing interest in (the last book I wrote was set in WWII), but in spite of that I just didn't find these books very interesting. Worse, I found them disturbingly violent, especially the second and third books, which didn't read as if they were written for adolescents about adolescent characters (Theo and Mickle) at all. Look, I know war is brutal. People die in it and that's a fact. But the body count in this series was phenomenal, and given that these books were written for young adults, that made it all the worse. I'm no shrinking violet...I just wanted this to be more than a simple role call of the fallen, or a description of how a whole lot of people met their grisly end.
Look, this writer's writing isn't bad. He's clearly an intelligent man, and he's more than competent at his craft. His grammar is good, and his logic is sound. But to my mind he just didn't have that extra something, that spark, that ability to create characters and events that I really care about. I did not empathise with the characters. They were all fairly 2 dimensional, and didn't have depths. (ie. The poet didn't write or quote any actual poetry. The lovers never really showed their love. And so on.) Moreover, these were people faced with war, and surprisingly, that didn't seem to worry most of them too much. They all seemed rather too willing to sacrifice their lives, even for causes or people they barely knew at all. None of them ever really showed fear -- in the face of war, I would have! None of them did what most soldiers do on the eve of war -- living out their time to the utmost, enjoying themselves as if the day is their last, knowing that it probably will be. These characters did not really have fun or cut loose, ever. They barely felt or did anything for themselves. They only minimally interacted with each other -- when they did it was usually just in a military capacity. Where was their sense of humanity, their sense of self or even their sense of self preservation? I did not get a sense that they were real people. Rather, they seemed more like gamepieces in an intricate military game. I never really empathised with them, or felt much for them. But then that was probably just as well, since most of them got horribly killed in the most brutal and bloodthirsty of ways.
At the end of reading this series I reached this tally:
BODYCOUNT: hundreds, probably thousands.
NUMBER OF TIMES THIS BOOK MADE ME SMILE, LAUGH, CRY OR REALLY FEEL: zero.
Not encouraging.
Some readers say this book has dry humour. I wouldn't have called it humour. Witticisms, perhaps, but they're more like clever observations than humour. They didn't make me laugh or even smile. If a standup comedian tried to pass them off as humour he'd be booed off stage for not being funny.
Some people say that the point of these books is to answer the question of whether or not it's okay to kill. Well, if that's the case then the author seems to be saying, yes, it's not just okay but it's a good idea to kill. In fact, why not kill hundreds of people? Why bother trying to reach a diplomatic solution to matters of war and democratic choice when you can just have a huge body count instead? What a lovely moral to teach the kiddies! And we wonder why there's so much violence in society.
There have been some very important revolutions in history, some of them very justified and needed revolutions that improved the lot of the people who rose up in them. There have, of course, been a lot of stupid and disastrous ones too. I am glad that someone has written about the subject of revolution, especially in a way that educates the young. But I just wish it could have been written better, with more empathy and heart and more emphasis on the human face of revolution rather than just the scheming and military manoeuvering and killing.
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