Rangers Apprentice Five; The Sorcerer of the North

"...Halt has been known to burn water when he boils it," said will the young apprentice to the well known Ranger, Halt.


          Rangers Apprentice is a series of books based on a boy named Will.  Will is raised as an orphan in a kingdom called Araluen in Redmont Fief.  As a fifteen year old boy he hopes to be apprenticed to the battle master and one day be a soldier along side the king, but is disappointed when he finds he is to be the apprentice to a Ranger.  Rangers are feared to be conjurers of dark magic.  Will is afraid to find wether their is truth behind the rumors or not. Through out the series Will grows to trust his trades master Halt and goes through many trials.  He grows understand that the dark arts are simply hoaxes and strongly believes that there is no such thing as real magic.   By book five will is nineteen and is assigned to take care of his own fief.  When a string of strange things start to happen Will is forced to put his own beliefs aside and investigate the seemingly mystical things going on in a nearby forest.

          I really enjoyed reading "The Sorcerer of the North" because of two things.  The first is that the author (John Flannagan) is an amazing writer!  The way he writes is simply exquisite.  He manages to make the story so funny, but not with straight out comedy.  Have you ever met one of those people that is totally hilarious, but they don't even know it?  they do it all with a straight face. That is what i liked about his comedy it came to all of his characters so naturally.  LIke with the quote I gave above, the joke just comes to Will so easily and as a reader you laugh because you know its true from past books.  Which leads me to the second thing I like about this book.  The character development was amazing. Through out the series you get to understand the characters so well and it makes you feel like you know everything about them ( not in a stalker way:) ) By the time I reached the fifth book I was so surprised as i looked back at how the characters had changed because it was so subtle I barely even noticed!


       I would definitely recommend this book for teens our age.  This book is action adventure so If you like the sort of suspenseful endings and fast paced middles then you would love it!  There isn't really any romance or anything so if you are a sucker for love stories it probably wouldn't be your favorite...:).