A tiny, curious mouse studying at Redwall Abbey, Matthias is fascinated with the stories of Martin the Warrior, the mouse who fought against evil and founded the Abbey. When Cluny the Scourge, the most evil and feared rat around, finds his way to Mossflower woods and becomes determined to take over the Abbey, Matthias takes the reigns in defending his home and his friends. But will he be able to defeat Cluny or will they be overtaken by the dictator and his ruthless crew?

I bought Redwall when I was in high school mostly due to the cover and the fact that it was a story about mice and other little critters that you don’t usually see starring in their own novels. However, I didn’t actually read it until recently, so my perception of the book may have been different if I had read it when I was in high school than it is now.

Overall, I thought Redwall was a cute story with characters that easily won my heart; characters that I either cheered for or against and formed quick opinions about. What surprised me was the book was not as hard to read as I thought it would be. One of the reasons why it took me so long to read Redwall was because I usually need to be mentally prepared to read about a whole new world with strange characters and somewhat complex plots (and maybe some dry language). I hadn’t felt prepared to read Redwall, to start a new fantasy that I knew had more than a few books in the series, until I decided it was time to give it that chance. I mean, I had been pretty excited about buying it back in high school, so why push it off any longer?

What I didn’t know is that Redwall is more of a kids book. The plot is fast paced and the language is easy to follow. No made up tongues; no complex adventures or plots; no ongoing story that you HAVE to read the next one to finish. Although part of me was a bit put off by how easy it was to read—when you’re expecting to be challenged it can be somewhat of a let down (or maybe not) if you aren’t—I still really enjoyed the story. Right now I’m not sure if I will continue with the rest of the series (I’m about 50-50 in that decision), but Redwall is definitely a book I want to read to my future kids and maybe they will enjoy it enough that we will end up reading the entire series together.