The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

February 27th, 2008 at 10:22am |

Audience: 9 and up

Rating: B

Synopsis:

Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi and the others are all back in the second part of this adventure. Gwydion has led them into a new adventure: seize the cauldron that Arawn has been using to create his corpse-warriors. This second book does much to advance the plot and introduces a host of new characters and dangers to Prydian.

Chatter:

(Spoiler Alerts! ) I found Taran to be significantly less annoying in this book. Partially because he has grown up since The Book of Three and also because he’s surrounded by characters who make him seem less obnoxious. Eilonwy continues to be my favorite character, her logic is so scattered, but she cracks me up with her frankness and because no matter what Taran says, she finds a way to misinterpret it. It seems like there may be the beginning of a romance developing between the two, I guess we’ll have to keep reading to find out.

This book is more developed than the first book in the series. The danger is clearer and more threatening, and there is sadness in this story too. The death of Adoan was awful, especially since he willingly chose to protect Taran, even though he knew it would be also choosing death. The death of Ellidyr was tragic too. Even though Ellidyr spent most of the book being awful, I wanted to see what he could have become if he’d had the opportunity to learn from the “black beast.” I know that sacrifice he made to destroy the cauldron was necessary, but it still left me wondering “what if…”