The Curse of the Romany Wolves by S. Jones Rogan

This animal fantasy could also be called an adventure novel. The Curse of the Romany Wolves starts in a land called Kernovia, with two foxes, Penhaligon and Rowan, living in an old manor. They have turned this manor into a hospital. In a nearby place called the Purple Moor there once lived a pack of wolves known as the Romany Wolves. One day a sickness called "wolf fever" came through and wiped out almost all of the wolves. Penhaligon and Rowan adopted the only two survivors, wolf cubs Dora and Donald. When Donald suddenly comes down with wolf fever, Penhaligon sets out on a journey to try and find the cure. On this journey, Penhaligon becomes friends with a sea serpent, is captured by a pirate, and reaches the Howling Island where he finds his father, Mawgan. Meanwhile, in the town of Porthleven in Kernovia, the sickness is spreading to the children of other animal families, which is strange because wolf fever had never spread to other types of animals before. Though he goes through many hardships seeking the cure, Penhaligon will not give up, because he is determined to save Donald.

I liked the pictures in this book, and thought that the ones of the sea serpent were very creative. This book is very interesting because the characters have unusual names, and there are a lot of characters who play important roles in the story. This book is a pure animal fantasy, with no human characters, and almost all of the characters are hilarious in their own way; for example, Pig-wiggy, one of the pirate Dredge's crew, is a guinea pig who is very concerned about his hair, and Dredge and his ferret crew are frequently described as very stinky. The setting of the book was easy to imagine, for example, the description of the three peaks on Howling Island and the serpent's cave were easy to picture in my mind. I found this book so good I could not take my eyes off of it, and finished reading it within four hours after it came in the mail. The ending surprised me a lot because Penhaligon found in the end that he had had what he needed without knowing it. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books with talking animals or sea serpents.

Reviewer Age:11

Reviewer City, State and Country: Lake City, IA USA