An Amazon summary to get my bearings, "Guided by a tattered map, accompanied by Thomas the Pig Boy, and inspired by the storyteller’s blood that thrums through her veins, eleven-year-old Trinket searches for the seven stories she needs to become a bard like her father, who disappeared years before. She befriends a fortune-telling gypsy girl; returns a child stolen by the selkies to his true mother; confronts a banshee and receives a message from a ghost; helps a village girl outwit—and out-dance—the Faerie Queen; travels beyond the grave to battle a dastardly undead Highwayman; and meets a hound so loyal he fights a wolf to the death to protect the baby prince left in his charge. All fine material for six tales, but it is the seventh tale, in which Trinket learns her father’s true fate, that changes her life forever." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
The summary above does a great job of summarizing about 5/6's of the book. Which is annoying as hell. As always, I am annoyed when book summaries give clues to the book's plot that extends more than a quarter or even a third of the way through the book.
However, this is very much a children's book. So perhaps the rules are a little different. I don't know, but from the title it's obvious that the book does contain seven tales.
So among every thing I am a sucker for, I am an immense sucker for fairy tales. Or books that take a fairy tale and retell it, but do so in the right fashion. Maybe someday I'll explain that. For a brief summary, I think that a retelling of the tale should be humble and keep many key points the same and if the tale is changed, it should only enhance the story; not detract from it.
With The Seven Tales of Trinket, I was whole heartedly delighted by what took place amongst these pages.
Trinket is a wise eleven year old (almost twelve I believe) who wants to discover what happened to her father. Her mother has just passed at the beginning of the book and she realizes there's not much left for her in the little town and now more than ever, she needs to find out what happened to her father. Why did he leave five years ago and never returned? Was he dead? Was he captured by pirates? Was he spending his days in jail somewhere? What happened to him?
As Trinket and her companion Thomas (the pig boy who was mothered in her house as his own mother had a very sharp tongue) go through her mother's belongings, they find an old map presumably left by her father; or it at least appears to be written in his hand.
Trinket decides to follow the map to see if she can discover what happened to her father, and perhaps even find him. Thomas accompanies her for the promise of adventure, and perhaps to keep an eye on her.
I also thought this story was slightly fantastic because the main plot seems to be about Trinket finding out about her Father, when the real story is so much more important. Yet, I would hate to spoil the real story since it's up to the individual reader to divine it.
I wish I had read this in 2012 so I could put it in my top ten book list.
A little bit of SPOILER LAND.
Now Trinket's journey takes her through different tales; most of them I am familiar with, yet one or two were new to me. In the back of her book she has an author's note that gives the title of the tales she told with brief explanations: The Gypsies and the Seer, The Harp of Bone and Hair, The Wee Banshee of Crossmaglin, The Faerie Queen and the Gold Coin, A Pig Boy, a Ghost, and a Pooka, The Old Burned Man and the Hound, and The Storyteller and the Truth.
As a reader, this thrilled me a little bit. It's neat to know where she drew her inspiration from, and where she uncovered some of the stories. As a writer, it emphasizes the importance of doing the research before you write a story that's based on something.
I don't know what else to say as I am often at a loss for words after reading a story I adored.
So I bid you adieu.
Happy reading!
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