Nancy Keane's Booktalks -- Quick and Simple

Jacques, Brian.
HIGH RHULAIN 
New York : Philomel Books, 2005
IL 5-8, RL 7.7
ISBN 0399242082
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews
 Tiria, the ottermaid, has become an amazing sharpshooter with her sling. Though young and inexperienced, she is thrust into battle when a gang of water rats capture a hawk, which they think is an eagle. She and her friends drive off surviving the water rats and return to Redwall Abbey with the injured hawk.

In her dreams, Tiria has Martin the Warrior and an otter lady appear. The otter lady speaks;

    "Like the Sun, High Rhulain will rise anew,
    To set the downtrodden free.
    A warriormaid with Wildlough blood
    Must cross the Western Sea.
    She who looks ever through windows
    At the signs with feathers make,
    Seek the Green Isle through her knowledge,
    For all thy kinbeasts’ sake" 

Then, a large barnacle goose shows up, nearly knocking Tiria off the ramparts of the Abbey. The goose has also been injured and is taken to the Abbey healer. It turns out that both the Goose and the Hawk hale from Green Isle. They tell a story of an island once the happy home of otters who are now held as slaves by wildcats. Riggu Felis, Warlord of the Green Isle Cats, lost half of his face trying to kill the hawk, and is making the slaves’ lives even more miserable.

Those at the abbey realize that Tiria is the High Rhulain spoken of by the lady, and must seek out the Green Isle to free the otters from the Wildcats and fulfill the riddle prophecy.  (Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award Nominees 2007-2008)
SUBJECTS:     Animals -- Fiction.
                        Fantasy.

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