The Wind Singer (The Wind on Fire, Book 1) [Hardcover]

William Nicholson (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Wind on Fire | Publication Date: September 2, 2000

Kestrel Hath's schoolroom rebellion against the stifling caste system of Aramanth leads to explosive consequences for her and her family: they are relegated to the city's lowest caste and are ostracized. With nothing left to lose, Kestrel and her twin brother, Bowman, do the unthinkable: they leave the city walls. Their only hope to rescue the rest of their family is to find the key to the wind singer, a now-defunct device in the city's center, which was once the course of happiness and harmony in Aramanth. But the key was given to an evil spirit-lord, the Morah, in exchange for the Morah's calling off its terrible army of Zars. Armed with desperate bravery, wits, and determination, Kestrel, Bowman, and a tagalong classmate set off to find the key. Along the way they meet allies and foes, but in order to succeed in their quest, they must face the most sinister force of all: the powerful Morah.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the city of Aramanth, the mantra is, "Better today than yesterday. Better tomorrow than today." Harder work means the citizens of Aramanth can keep moving forward to improved life stations--from Gray tenements and Orange apartments, upwards to glorious mansions of White. Only some families, like the Haths, believe more in ideas and dreams than in endless toil and ratings. When Kestrel Hath decides she is through with the Aramanth work ethic, she is joined in her small rebellion by her twin brother Bowman and their friend Mumpo. Together, they set the orderly city on its ear by escaping Aramanth's walls for an adventure that takes them from city sewers to desert sandstorms. Guided by an archaic map, they know that if they can find the voice of the Wind Singer, an ancient and mysterious instrument that stands in the center of Aramanth, they can save their people from their dreamless existence. But the voice is guarded by the dreaded Morah and its legion of perfect killing machines, the Zars. Are three ragtag kids any match for an army of darkness?

Like Lois Lowry's The Giver and Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, The Wind Singer is a rich, multilayered fantasy that can be read on many levels. With this first volume of a planned trilogy, British author William Nicholson deftly illustrates such fundamental values as tolerance and the importance of individuality, without sacrificing a bit of the novel's breathless adventure. Watch out, J.K. Rowling! If the rest of The Wind on Fire trilogy is as amazing as this debut, Nicholson's books may be the next hot English export. (Ages 10 and older) --Jennifer Hubert --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Nicholson's (Shadowlands) highly imaginative debut YA novel, the first in a planned trilogy, starts out tantalizingly but eventually neglects its internal logic. In the dystopian city of Aramanth, family ratings determine position, housing and privileges within the society's color-coded caste system. As the novel opens, the Hath family brings two-year-old Pinpin for her first day of "testing"Awith comically disastrous results. Shortly after, Kestrel, the Haths' strong-headed and brave daughter, stages a rebellion in a riotously depicted scene at school and eventually ends up climbing the wind singer (a giant archaic structure whose history is nearly forgotten) to hurl curses at the town. Events escalate, and soon Kestrel, her twin brother (who has supernatural abilities to empathize with others) and a learning-disabled classmate, Mumpo, find themselves on a quest to retrieve the wind singer's voice; according to legend, it will restore harmony to Aramanth. Nicholson is at his best when he adheres to Kestrel's point of view; occasional shifts in perspective may temporarily break readers from the author's spell. Highly original characters, such as the loving "Mudpeople" who inhabit a world under the city's grid-like streets, and "old children" whose touch zaps the life from normal humans, exert a powerful fascination. However, there are inconsistencies (Why, when Mumpo turns into one of the "old children," is he exempt from the laws that govern them?) and unexplored elements (e.g., Kestrel's mother's ancestry and gifts as a prophetess). Perhaps these curiosities will be explained in subsequent installments, but they come across here as loose ends. Final artwork not seen by PW. Ages 10-14. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1St Edition edition (September 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786824948
• ISBN-13: 978-0786824946
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,625,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, October 12, 2004

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wind Singer (The Wind on Fire, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Children's books about the horrors of standardized testing are increasingly popular these days. From Edward Bloor's well-intentioned, "Storytime" to "The Report Card" by the otherwise talented Andrew Clements, these books have attempted to capture the dangers of this destructive teaching tool. Both books have fallen short, leaving some people to wonder if there could ever be a book that discusses this sometimes controversial subject well. What few people know is that there's a fantastic well-written and beautifully put together fantasy series that begins with the horrific results of what happens when a society bases all decisions on testing. Regular methodical testing. In William Nicholson's, "The Wind Singer", (the first in his "Wind On Fire" trilogy), the term "distopia" takes on a whole new look and meaning. In a book that is simultaneously wise, beautifully penned, and deeply moving, "The Wind Singer", gets to the bottom of rigid test-based communities and show us a beautiful worst-case scenario.

Aramanth is a community that loves its tests. Living by the daily pledge, "I vow to strive harder, to reach higher, and in every way to seek to make tomorrow better than today", its citizens embody the ultimate caste system. Based on strict standardized testing, people live according to how well they test. The nicest homes belong to those members of society that answer quizzes effectively and intelligently. For those people who don't like tests or don't do well on them for a variety of reasons, they live on the bottom rungs of society. There's very little rebellion in Aramanth due to its rigid control of any possible insubordination on the part of its citizens. That is, until one day little Kestrel Hath decides that she doesn't want to live in a world based on testing anymore. Suddenly she's endangered her family and herself. There seems no escape from Aramanth's rules and regulations, until the ancient Emperor, a disused ruler, tells Kestral about the Wind Singer. This gigantic and ancient construction of pipes that towers over the town was once given the ability to sing to its citizens, calming their hearts and making them happy. When the key to the Wind Singer's voice was stolen, the society became cold and hardened into its current state. With her twin brother Bowman and their initially unwanted tagalong Mumpo at her side, Kestral and company embark on a quest to save Aramanth from itself once and for all.

I nominate this book for the title, Perfect Distopian Novel. I've not fallen for a fabulous fantasy in a long time, and this book has everything you could want in it. A great (and little used) moral. Characters you care about deeply. A gripping plot. Everything. I greatly appreciated that the parents of the heroes in this book were not only both alive (name three children's books, especially fantasies, where that's the case) but also active, amusing, and subversive aids to their kids' efforts. Too often parents fret and flail in children's novels, adding nothing to the story but woe. In this book, however, Mr. and Mrs. Hath recognize the quest their children are on and decide to raise a little hooplah in Aramanth on their own. The results are quite fabulous. I was also impressed by the character of Mumpo. A developmentally challenged boy who loves the Hath twins desperately, Mumpo could easily have been a kind of mock-Forest Gump character, spouting simple platitudes and giving everyone around him a patented new lookout on life. Ugh. There's a little of that, but Nicholson is clever enough to know how to give Mumpo more complexity than Mr. Gump. His character learns and grows (sometimes frighteningly) through his experiences and his very existence makes the twins kinder people through his presence.

There are an awful lot of other things good in this story, though. For one thing, I think it contains the scariest evil army I've ever read. You can keep your "Lord of the Rings"-type orcs and goblins. I personally believe that the army of the Zars, a relentlessly cheery troop of endless, young, white-suited, peppy people given to singing "Kill Kill Kill" at the top of their voices, is the most horrifying group to ever appear in a children's book. The Zars are rivaled in evil, however, by a prematurely old group of children with the ability to suck the youth out of anyone they touch. Worst of all is the evil spirit-lord, the Morah. The Morah has long since convinced the citizens of Aramanth that he's a myth. It reminds me of the quote, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist". With these incredibly awful foes, it's a wonder Kestrel and Bowman keep their wits about them. Finally, the book has a deep emotional core that I think will be appreciated by all readers. The Hath family is very loving and caring. The bond between the twins is deep and Nicholson deftly portrays the depths of Mumpo's loneliness and despair. Plus the book has an amazing array of different worlds through which the kids travel. From the deep mud world below Aramanth to a traveling city on wheels (suspiciously similar those found in the more recent "Hungry City Chronicles" by fellow Brit, Phillip Reeve), Nicholson creates new worlds out of thin air. The result is a book that'll have you continually reading for hours on end, unable to stop even part way through.

The most recommended fantasy book in schools nation-wide is undeniably Lois Lowry's, "The Giver". I suggest that, as good as it is, we give, "The Giver", a break for once and encourage our kids to read "The Wind Singer" instead. Those children that suffer under the strain of repeated testing will appreciate the book's strong message. Children who like great action sequences and heightened danger will fall for the book's fast-paced escapes and battles. And those children that simply like a good story with good writing will be entranced. I say with conviction that this is probably the strongest British fantasy book for children written in the twenty-first century. It's simply the best.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for the young, November 13, 2000

By 

Lorraine Berry (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wind Singer (The Wind on Fire, Book 1) (Hardcover)

This book is within the tradition of science fiction/fantasy that seeks to make comments about our current state of human affairs through entertaining fiction, without beating the reader over the head with the obvious moral of the story.

It's not often that one's heartbeat is raised when reading a book, but that's exactly what happened to me on several occasions while reading this. Mr. Nicholson has written a stupendous novel, and I'll be first in line to buy the second book in the trilogy.

In Amaranth, everyone has their place in society, and that place is determined by one's performance on exams. Each year, test-takers have the opportunity to move up in the social hierarchy, with those who fail the test sent down a level. Those who have risen to the very top of the system seem to like it best, and feel most threatened by those whose apathy toward their own position in Amaranth makes a mockery of the whole system of constantly striving to better oneself.

This is the place from which Kestrel and her brother, Bowman, start out on their great quest. And what a quest it is! The obstacles that they encounter on their journey for Amaranth's version of the Holy Grail are so well-described by Mr. Nicholson that I felt myself covered with mud, or on top of a steep precipice, or surrounded by thousands of zombie-like drones.

So, my recommendation is this. If you liked Harry Potter, give this a go. If you didn't like Harry Potter, give this a go.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better for young adults rather than for adults, June 19, 2001

By 

T. Adshead - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wind Singer (The Wind on Fire, Book 1) (Hardcover)

I only realised that this was not a full adult book when I started reading the other reviews. This book does not have the richness of, say, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, or the Harry Potter books, which are "young adult" books that have successfully crossed over for an adult audience. But it is fine for a young adult audience.

I blazed through it in one evening: the story is highly gripping, and keeps your attention throughout. Teenagers will respond well to the story of two young people, one concerned with action (Kestrel) another with feelings (Bowman), who rebel against a structured life of exams and rigid classes. Sound like school? It's also a nice touch that the feeling character is male, and the action one is female, although the book is not politically correct in a heavy handed way.

Kestrel's rebellion and wilfulness land her in trouble, and also bring her face to face with the hidden emperor of their world, who tasks her with bringing back the wind singer, and saving the nation. This involves a perilous journey out of the walled city, Aramanth, to the mountains in the North, and brings her, and her brother, in contact with interesting and dangerous people.

The story is simple, and pretty linear, but that is what will keep a young person's attention. The morality is not heavy-handed, but the values it preaches of individuality and tolerance are just the right ones. Not particularly recommended for adults therefore, but a great read for younger readers.