Harsu and the Werestoat

by Barbara Else

Harsu has five droplets of god blood and a treasured cloak to remember his father by.

Now his father is gone, he lives with his mother, his only friend an old onager donkey. And something is not right with Harsu’s mother. She has started kidnapping children, and sometimes her skin grows a soft down, little sharp ears emerge, and she turns into a horrible stoat.

Harsu doesn’t know if five godlet drops are enough to help him rescue the kidnapped children and turn his own mother to good. And now that he is twelve, he too might be becoming a were-animal …

Genres: Childrens

240 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2019

About the author

Barbara Else is a playwright and fiction writer, and has also worked as a literary agent, editor and fiction consultant. Else won the Victoria University Writer’s Fellowship in 1999, and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 2005.

Reviews

[SBC]

Not at all what I expected. The story starts in the ancient world and then characters travel through successive time periods (Vikings, Puritans, and modern day New Zealand). It was a weird combination of time periods and a weird story.

Harsu is the only son of Daama, who is one of the many (many!) grandchildren of the many (many!) children of the wind god. We later learn this early setting for the story is Ur (a major Sumerian city-state located in Mesopotamia, founded circa 3800 BCE). Harsu's mother is ridiculous - immature, petty, greedy, and vain. Because Harsu's face is scarred by fever, she keeps kidnapping children because she must have the perfect child to show she is the perfect mother. After all her servants abandon her, she takes Harsu and a kidnapped child through the Gate of Time and Place, trying to find the perfect child in different times and places. Eventually, Daama, Harsu, and a bunch of kidnapped children end up in modern day New Zealand.

Harsu does his best to protect and help the children, while trying to please his mother. As time passes, he comes to realise there is no pleasing his mother and no helping her become better than she is, either. The essential nastiness of her nature appears to be symbolised by her becoming a werestoat when she is emotional. To save the children, and himself, Harsu must remember that he is also a descendant of the wind god.

[Pauline]

3.5 stars

Barbara Else is a very accomplished New Zealand writer whose works are well known for their extensive world building and humour. Harsu and the Werestoat is an original part fairy tale, part adventure and time-travel novel. Harsu is a strong character with a defined moral compass. It’s not easy to live with a mother who is the daughter of the Wind God who is determined to get revenge on Harsu’s warrior-physician human father, and who also turns into a stoat demon andwants to kidnap little children. A journey through the gate of time and place brings them to modern New Zealand where Harsu must learn to harness his power and use his strengths for good, while keeping his mother happy and also trying to thwart her plans. Although this story is resolved the ending clearly sets Harsu up for more adventures on his quest.

Suitable 9+ time-travel, magic, fantasy, demons, kidnapping of children

[Great Reads]

Firstly, at a reading level while this would be accessible to advanced readers of 8-9+ I feel the themes presented are definitely leaning towards older readers and would place this as a great transition from traditional children's fiction towards YA - and feel that many points would resonate with the YA audience far better.

A beautiful tale in a fantasy world that is fascinatingly built very swiftly and as we take turns with the characters new factors appear that we must get on board with swiftly. Characterisation is key to me in getting gripped in a book and I was sold within the first few pages and as the plot developed into some very unexpected territory I was all the more keen. While this is very true of the leads a few side characters are far more functional but in a way that lends itself well to the later storytelling approach. Tying together the voices of traditional myth and something akin to Diana Wynne Jones' magic I would recommend this very highly for younger fans of fantasy escapism, but also pose as a challenge to those readers who are gripped more by social realism for the intrigue that will come from many of the relationships.

[Reader]

I really wanted to like this book. Its got a fantastic title and a good strong start. but then it sort of lost its way. What was the point? Where was it going.
I kept reading to see if it had one. It did not. Characters had no development because they didnt get any time on the pages.
It felt like a first draft, or possibly a sketch of the eventual story, but then the author ran out of time and had to submit it.

[Cassandra]

Weird. Mostly in a good way, but I think this'd be better as a short story. It also didn't really go anywhere?

I think 7 or 8 y/o me might have liked it better.