[EEY]⇒ [PDF] The Illyrian Adventure Lloyd Alexander 9780141303130 Books

The Illyrian Adventure Lloyd Alexander 9780141303130 Books

Download As PDF : The Illyrian Adventure Lloyd Alexander 9780141303130 Books

The Illyrian Adventure Lloyd Alexander 9780141303130 Books

These are great light reads...A series of high spirited plots with quickly familiar characters, entertaining interactions and dialogue in out of the way locations strategically playing fairly moral protagonists against a materially brilliant, sociopathic arch villian. The refreshingly clever, intredpid young shero fights one righteous battle after another... wish these types of tales were around when I was a girl!


Tags : The Illyrian Adventure [Lloyd Alexander] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. On a visit to a remote European kingdom in 1872, Vesper Holly, a fearless sixteen-year-old orphan, and her guardian research an ancient legend and become entangled in a dangerous rebellion. An ALA Notable Book. Reissue.,Lloyd Alexander,The Illyrian Adventure,Puffin,0141303131,Fantasy & Magic,Adventure and adventurers;Fiction.,Revolutions;Fiction.,Action & Adventure - General,Adventure and adventurers,Children's BooksAges 9-12 Fiction,Children: Grades 4-6,Fiction,Juvenile Fiction,Juvenile Fiction Fantasy & Magic,Revolutions,Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9)

The Illyrian Adventure Lloyd Alexander 9780141303130 Books Reviews

After completing his Westmark trilogy, Lloyd Alexander must have been in the mood for some lighter fare and so he created the adventurous Vesper Holly and her guardian Brinny and set them off on a series of adventures in the late 1800's. The Illyrian Adventure is a fun and rapid-paced novel, filled with archeological finds, mysterious characters and exotic locales. Great fun for readers of any age. I'm looking forward to reading the further adventures of Holly and Vesper.
I've been a Lloyd Alexander fan for a long time. His Westmark Trilogy and Prydain Chronicles are certainly some of my favorities for their high adventure, dry wit, and extraordinary depth. I've even exchanged letters with Alexander. Needless to say, I've been excited to begin the Vesper Holly books for a long times, and while this one is not quite up to the level of Westmark and Prydain, I am not disappointed.
Vesper Holly is quite a girl. She has a knack for getting into finding trouble and adventure. In this novel, she drags her Uncle Brinnie to Illyria and into a civil war with its roots in ancient mythology. Together, Vesper and Brinnie have to try to unite the country by bringing together the king and the leader of the rebel forces. Of course, the plot contains a lot of murder attempts and quick escapes and mysterious plot twists. It's certainly a fun, fast ride.
There is a lot that's great about this book. I'm always a stickler for good high adventure, and the humor, action, and characters of The Illyrian Adventure provide that. The only problem with the book is that it stops there. Where Prydain and Westmark have underlying messages about such things as political philosophy, the nature of heroism, and the ability of love to cut through the chaos of the world, this book did not have that depth. Certainly, read this book, but read Westmark and Prydain first.
Do you know where Illyria is--or was? In classical antiquity, Illyria (also Illyricum) was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians. It is 1872 and Vesper Holly, a sixteen-year-old girl living in Philadelphia, PA, has just lost her father, a famous archaeologist named Dr. Benjamin Rittenhouse Holly, who had died on the Greek island of Mykonos. Dr. Holly's will appointed his friend and colleague, Professor Brinton Garrett as executor of his estate, custodian of his personal papers, and guardian of his daughter. So Professor Garrett and his wife Mary move from their home to the Holly estate of Stratford, along with his beehives and her gardening talents.
Several hundred years before, the (fictional) nation of Illyria and its king Vartan were conquered by the invading Zentans of Turkish extraction under their king Ahmad. By the late 1800s, the country was divided into the ruling Zentans and the native Illyrians who had been reduced to peasantry. Their ancient epic, the Illyriad, talks about a great treasure and a magical army. Dr. Holly had been studying the Illyriad before his death, and Vesper wants to carry on his work, so she and "Brinnie" sail for Illyria where they wind up in the middle of a revolt against the Zentan King Osman by the Illyrians under their leader who calls himself "Vartan." They hire a dragoman named Nilo and with Osman's permission head for the region of Alba-Collia to begin their search. In the process, they are captured by rebels, then put in prison by the Zentan governor of the region, and finally face some very powerful enemies. Will they find what they seek? Will they even come out alive?
Lloyd Alexander is perhaps best known for his Prydain Chronicles, a series of five novels, one of which, The Black Cauldron, was a Newbery Honor book (1966), and another, The High King, won the Newbery Medal (1969). However, he wrote many other books. The Illyrian Adventure, narrated by Brinnie, is a very exciting story, and even though it is about a teenage girl, I think that there is enough rough and tumble adventure that most boys would enjoy reading it too. Some might say that the ending is a little too predictable, but there is nothing objectionable in the book, and I liked it. It concludes with the following statement. "The dear girl, I fear, may be contemplating some alarming, disruptive, perhaps dangerous project. In which case, I would naturally do all in my power to keep her from any such rash or foolhardy enterprise. Unless she wished me to accompany her." There follow five more books in the "Vesper Holly" series The El Dorado Adventure (1987); The Drackenberg Adventure (1988); The Jedera Adventure (1989); The Philadelphia Adventure (1990); and The Xanadu Adventure (2005).
Wonderful read! An excellent adventure for middle schoolers.
Learning about history is not only for us adults but for teenagers as well. This book told it so that all can enjoy learning.
These are great light reads...A series of high spirited plots with quickly familiar characters, entertaining interactions and dialogue in out of the way locations strategically playing fairly moral protagonists against a materially brilliant, sociopathic arch villian. The refreshingly clever, intredpid young shero fights one righteous battle after another... wish these types of tales were around when I was a girl!