Lionclaw: Tale of Rowan Hood [Paperback]

Nancy Springer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2004 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: Rowan Hood

Lionel believes that he is nothing but an awkward coward, and he much prefers playing his harp to drawing a sword. Banished by his warrior father, Lord Lionclaw, he finds refuge in Sherwood Forest and joins a misfit band of outlaws led by Rowan Hood, daughter of Robin. Lionel is loyal and grateful to his good friend Rowan, yet he is also determined to make peace with his father. But when Lionclaw is taken prisoner by Robin Hood one night, he spots his son among the outlaws and vows revenge on him. Suddenly Sherwood Forest is filled with danger, and Lionel wants nothing more than to turn and run. Then Lionclaw’s bounty hunters capture Rowan and use her as bait, and suddenly the lion in Lionel is awakened.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7-The main character in this sequel to Rowan Hood: Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest (Philomel, 2001) is Lionel, the timid son of Lord Roderick Lionclaw. He is a harp-playing bard who refuses to fight or act more "manly" despite his large size. When his father disowns him and puts a bounty on his head, Lionel hides out with Rowan in the forest. Rowan's band comes under attack, but won't leave the forest despite Robin Hood's urgings. When Rowan is caught by the bounty hunters, Lionel is ready to give his own life to save her. In the end, Lord Lionclaw does not accept his son, but he doesn't kill him either, and Lionel is proud of himself for overcoming his fears. The plot is slight, and readers are sometimes dropped into action scenes without being quite sure what is going on. Familiarity with the first book is necessary in order to have any understanding of this one. Lionel's development is predictable, and he is so annoyingly quivery and wimpy for most of the novel that he isn't a likable or sympathetic character. Other members of Rowan's band are intriguing, though, and their stories could produce interesting sequels if they are thoroughly developed.
Cheri Estes, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. This sequel to Rowan Hood: Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest (2001) focuses on Rowan's good friend, Lionel, Lord Lionclaw's cowardly, seven-foot son, who has been banished from home because he prefers playing his lute to being trained as a warrior. In this book, Lionel tries to make peace with his father after Dad is captured by Robin Hood--only to have his vicious, tyrannical parent declare a bounty on his head. At first Lionel tries to hide, but when hunters capture Rowan, Lionel sets off to rescue her, without regard for the consequences to himself. Springer excels at keeping the action and adventure in high gear, and she creates strong characters with clear motivations. Although Lionel rises to the occasion when fighting is called for, his essential gentle nature does not change, and he comes to accept his father for the person he is, even as he realizes that his father will never accept him. This volume fits in beautifully with the series, but it can also stand alone. Either way, it is sure to be popular with adventure enthusiasts. Kay Weisman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Puffin (April 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014240053X
• ISBN-13: 978-0142400531
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,037,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Conform, go crazy, or become an artist." I have a rubber stamp declaring those words, and they pretty much delineate my life. Conforming was the thing to do when I was raised, in the fifties. Even my mother, who spent her days painting animal portraits at an easel in the corner of the kitchen, tried to conform via housecleaning, bridge parties, and a new outfit every spring. My father, who was born into a British-mannered Protestant family in southern Ireland, emigrated to America as a young man and idolized the "melting pot" because at last he fit in. Once in a rare while he recited "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" or told a tale of a leprechaun, but most of the time he was an earnest naturalized American who expected exemplary behavior of his children. My mother was a charming Pollyanna who would not entertain negative sentiments in herself or anyone around her. As their only girl and the baby of the family, I was coddled, yet hardly ever got a chance to be other than excruciatingly good.

My "conform" phase lasted right into adulthood. When I was thirteen, my parents bought a small motel near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and I spent most of my teen years helping them make beds and clean rooms. I did not date until I went to college -- Gettysburg College, all of seven miles from home. it was the height of the sixties, and I grew my hair long, but eschewed pot, protests, and "happenings." Instead, I married a preacher's son who was himself conforming by studying for the ministry. Within a few years I was Rev. Springer's wife, complete with offspringers, living in a country parsonage in southern York County, PA.

Here beginneth the "go crazy" phase.

Because I had never been allowed any negative emotions, I began to hear "voices" in my head. First they whispered "divorce" (not permissible), and later they hissed "suicide". They scared me silly. I couldn't sleep; images of knives and torture floated in front of my eyes even during the daytime; something roared like an animal inside my ears; my wrists hurt; I saw blood seeping out of the walls; panic jolted me like a cattle goad out of nowhere. Is it necessary to add that I was clinically depressed? The doctor gave me Valium and sent me to a shrink. The shrink took me off the Valium and told me I had a problem with anger. (No duh.) The next doctor zombied me on the numbing antidepressants which were available at that time. The next shrink said I had an adjustment problem. And so on, for several years, during which I somehow managed to stay alive, take care of my kids, handle the vagaries of my husband, sew clothing and grow vegetables to get by financially, cook, can preserves, show up at church, do mounds of laundry and publish "The White Hart" and "The Silver Sun"--yet not one of the doctors of shrinks ever suggested that I might be a strong person, let alone a writer. All of them were intent on "helping" poor little me "adjust" to being a housewife, mother, and pastor's wife.

Eventually I became resigned to the fact (as I perceived it) that I was an evil, sinful person with horrible things going on inside my head, and I stopped trying to fix me. I stopped going to doctors or therapists. Somehow I found courage--or desperation--to stop trying to conform or adjust or live a role.

"I am going to start taking an hour or two first thing in the morning to do my writing," I said to my husband.

"Fine," he said. He had reached the point where he would agree with whatever to humor the neurotic wife; to him it was just another of my brain farts. But to me it was the most important sentence I ever spoke. With that statement I stopped being a housewife who sometimes stole time to write, and I started being a writer.

Conform, go crazy--or become an artist.

By becoming a writer--by becoming who I truly was--I became well.

It was so simple. Although it did take years, of course; it takes a long time for good things to grow. Trees. Books. Me. Odd thing about books; they not only nourish growth but show it happening. In "The Black Beast, The Golden Swan" and many other of my early novels, you can see me dealing with the yang/yin nature of good and evil, struggling to accept my own shadow. In "Chains of Gold" and "The Hex Witch of Seldom" I start writing as a woman, no longer identifying only with male main characters. In a number of children's books I come to terms with my own childhood. And in "Apocalypse"--whoa, what a fierce, dark fantasy novel, the first thing I wrote after my income from writing enabled my husband to leave the ministry. I hadn't thought of myself as repressed when I was a pastor's wife, but obviously something broke loose when I shed that role. "Larque on the Wing"--whoa again, another breakthrough book that spiraled straight out of my muddled middle-aged psyche and took me places I'd never dreamed were in me.

It's been a long time since those days when I thought I was an evil person. I know better now, and I love and trust me even to the extent of writing "Fair Peril"--a more perilous novel than I knew at the time, interfacing all too closely with my life. Written two years before the fact, it foresees my husband's infidelity and my divorce. The most painful irony I've ever faced is that once I gained my selfhood, I lost my lifelong partner. He had supported me through episodes that would have sent most men screaming and running, but once I became well and strong, he transferred his loyalty to a skinny, neurotic waif all to similar to the young woman I once was. After supporting him through twenty-seven years of stinky socks, automotive yearnings, miscellaneous foibles, and the career change that put him where she could cry on his shoulder, I found this a bit hard to take. But I wouldn't go back to being Ms. Pitiful. Not for anything.

Now married to a rather remarkable second husband, after living 46 years in Pennsylvania I moved in 2007 to the Florida panhandle, where I spent a year living in a small apartment above the aforementioned husband's hangar in an exceedingly rural (swamps, egrets, snakes and alligators) airport. Now we have a real house about a mile from the airport on higher ground featuring tremendously tall longleaf pine trees with rattlesnakes and scorpions underneath them. Life is an adventure and I mean that sincerely.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming Tale of Friendship and Courage, August 26, 2010

By 

Julie (NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Lionclaw (Hardcover)

I wish I had read these books in order, but at the same time, I'm glad I read them as I did (5,1,3,4,2). 5 gives you an overview of all the characters, while the others focus on Rowan (1), Etty (3), Rook (4), and Lionel (2). The side panel will tell you most of the basic plot, but this is one of the few stories I've ever read where that's all right. It's not really about the "what" but the "how".

Yes, it is a very short read and very, very descriptive about the woods in which it takes place. I think the shortness is a boon in this case because of the sometimes overly descriptive nature of the story. However, this is a story that needs heavy description because it's largely a young man's journey to find his courage. He's spent several years running literally and figuratively from his abusive father, who would like nothing more than to kill him for refusing to learn a warrior's way. For himself, Lionel would simply keep on running, but for his friend, he will learn to stand as a man.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "We Will Make an Outlaw Out of You Yet...", May 12, 2010

By 

R. M. Fisher "Raye" (New Zealand = Middle Earth!) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Lionclaw: Tale of Rowan Hood (Paperback)

The Rowan Hood series consists of five books which pertain to the five members of a young outlaw gang. These are brave, spunky Rowan, the daughter of the legendary Robin Hood, Lionel, an overgrown cowardly minstrel, Rook the wild boy, and Ettarde, a runaway princess. Also with them is Tykell, a wolf-dog hybrid that can catch arrows out of the air. Each books centers on one of these characters, and "Lionclaw" is Lionel's story.

The son of a very disappointed father, Lionel is as tall as a giant and with "feet the size of pony heads." However, despite his size, he has a timid, courtly disposition and would much rather spent his time playing his harp. His gifts as a musician have been known to draw the aelfe from the forests, but such a talent hardly impresses his sadistic father Sir Rogerick Lionclaw.

Lionel's cowardice in combat stems from his fear that he'll injure his fingers (and therefore be unable to play his harp), but when his father comes to Sherwood with a bounty on his son's head, Lionel feels that he's putting his companions at risk. He flees, only to find that they are all in danger from the thuggish Guy of Gisborn, a bounty hunter who wears a horse-head visor and has a score to settle with the young outlaws.

This is a very slender book, and voracious readers could finish it in one sitting. As such characterization is still rather slim in regards to the other members of the gang, though I'm sure that following books Outlaw Princess of Sherwood and Wild Boy will give them some much-deserved attention. Lionel himself fluctuates between annoying and endearing, Robin and his outlaws are periphery characters, and there's still no sign of Marian.

The descriptions of Sherwood Forest are atmospheric and mysterious, with plenty of attention paid to the terrain, flora and fauna of the place, but I'm a little confused about the time period: Springer mentions a king, but deliberately withholds a name (perhaps to prevent the book from being dated). However, one of the ballads that Lionel sings is "Greensleeves", a song that did not exist until the reign of King Henry the Eighth. Likewise, everyone swears "by the Lady" though I'm not sure who that refers to: the Virgin Mary or a pagan goddess?

I guess the problem is that although it's a quick, entertaining read, there's no real meat to the story in regards to background, character and plot (for the second time in as many books, someone is captured by the bad guys). Younger readers will get the most out of the "Rowan Hood" series, especially those interested in the Robin Hood mythos.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Rowan Hood series continues, straight downhill..., September 29, 2005

By 

M. A. Bechaz "bookaholic" (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lionclaw: Tale of Rowan Hood (Paperback)

Sadly, this second book in the Rowan Hood series just isn't very good. I didn't find it overly exciting, or very well-written, either. It's exceptionally short, too, at only 122 pages, but that's probably a good thing: I know it's set in a forest, but if I had to read one more paragraph of 'filler' material describing every leaf and aspect of the forest in painstakingly fine detail I was going to scream. Yes, this book is set in a forest, I get that, but there's no need to constantly rub my face in it! Enough already! More time should have been spent on developing characters, action, plot and dialogue, and less on pointless, cumbersome background descriptions.

What really bugged me most of all, though, was this author's love of using the word 'scud'. She constantly talked about the scudding clouds. And it wasn't just the clouds scudding, either...on one page she also wrote both 'the moon scudding amid clouds' and 'scudding moonlit sky'. Now, my dictionary defines 'scud' as "to move along fast and smoothly". Personally, I've never seen either the moon or the moonlit sky moving along fast and smoothly, have you? Perhaps this writer needs to learn what words mean before she uses them so frequently!

This is a passable book, but nothing special. The young-uns'll probably like it, if they're not too demanding. I suppose if you've already read the first in the series and enjoyed it, you might want to keep going, to see how the story pans out. But I doubt this episode of the saga will rock your world.