fanart for Books of the Raksura
Oct. 10th, 2019 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7So I started reading The Cloud Roads, the first installment of Martha Wells' wonderful Books of the Raksura series, to my niece several years ago.
She's my sister's kid, and I spend about two weeks a month in the summers at my sister's farm each year doing farm work, so Farmkid (Willa) and I spend a bunch of time hanging out while her mom's doing Farm Stuff and have done since she was less than two. At one point, I think she might've been about three, I had my Kindle e-reader out, and she was fascinated because it glowed and I could read from it in the dark. She wanted me to read a book from the glowing Kindle to her at bedtime, and I had no children's books on there. So I thought, well... At that point I'd probably read The Cloud Roads a dozen times, so I knew I could easily avoid any inappropriate scenes.
So I started reading her The Cloud Roads. (I think I started off with an excerpt, when Moon first goes to the nurseries at Indigo Cloud, and she was so enchanted I went back and started the book, and after that she always would demand it by chanting "Moon and Chime! Moon and Chime!")
Sure, sometimes it was a bit too exciting, and sometimes I had to stop and talk about what was going on-- Flower's whole... thing hit her hard, which I had expected, and had prepared for-- and we've had some good talks about the concept of an unreliable narrator, because Moon is so paranoid, especially in the Siren Depths when he's so horribly distraught, god that book is so juicy-- it's been fantastic for her, I think, to understand that what Moon feels may not be quite what is true, and so on. And there were definitely some scenes where I had to stop and say, "Moon doesn't die here, we know because we read that story set later and he's still alive in it," because she was Overcome by the Peril. (Is that a spoiler? I don't think it's a spoiler, he's in the back jacket copy on all the books.)
The two sort of coda books, after the trilogy, have been a little more challenging because they have more adult situations in them-- I don't mean sex, though, I mean politics. The sex is super easy to handle in these books-- it's so matter-of-fact and mostly offscreen anyway, I've barely had to change a single word there. The violence, mostly I just skip a descriptive sentence here and there, and sometimes pause to talk about it. But politics? Oy. It's very hard to explain politics to a kid, and she struggled to focus, and the beginning of Edge of Worlds was pretty dense in that respect; she powered through out of sheer love of the characters. Now we're right back into the action though, and she's having no trouble keeping up.
It's been years now, and she's five and three-quarters, has started kindergarten, and can read perfectly well on her own. But I still read to her, frequently, when I'm in town. We've had long hiatuses, but she always asks for Moon And Chime again, so we go back-- and I've now read her almost all of the five books, most of the short stories in the two collections, and a number of the short-shorts on Patreon. We're in Harbors of the Sun now, and have just finished the scene where Malachite tells Pearl she doesn't need anyone to tell her to go, but she might need someone to tell her to stop.
I don't know what we'll do when we reach the end, but Farmkid has suggested perhaps we could start again at the beginning, because she barely remembers it.
I will say, the single greatest gift to her in the entire series is the scene in Harbors of the Sun where Frost gets to sit in on a grown-up Queens' Council. She has always identified with Frost, since the character was introduced-- a baby? a baby queen? of course!-- and was over the moon to see her get to interact like an adult. I am probably going to reread her that scene, and the associated materials on Patreon, many many times. It has also been, I think, really really really good for Farmkid to see the evolution of how the Fell are revealed in the books-- they start out as sort of children's movie Evil Villains at first, where just everything they do is Terrible, and it gets a great deal more complex, without getting too spoilery, by the end. It has been really fun to watch her adjust her attitudes as we meet Kethel and Consolation and First, not to be too specific or spoilery, but-- if you as a reader kind of bounced off the opening of the series because of the feeling of biological determinism, I might remind you of the unreliable narration and ask you to give it more of a shot.
Anyhow! Willa's done fanart before, but I never got it posted before. This is the latest round, arranged in a rogue's gallery on the hallway wall, and there's a special guest at the end from the other series we've started reading. Usually she draws Moon, but she left him and Chime out of this round-- maybe the most interesting thing about the last pair of books is that we get other narrators more, and this round of fanart reflects that. She drew them while I was reading, so they feature characters that were in the scenes I was reading at the time.
(the click through goes to Flickr for larger sizes)
Stone: she gave him a yellow shirt because she couldn't remember what color his shirt was, and yellow is her favorite. She likes him a lot.
Bramble.
She has taken to calling me Bramble when she's pretending to be Frost. I suggested it, because she kept slipping into having Jade be doing mothery things, and that is not how Raksura work; anyone caring for a child would be an Arbora, and Bramble was the one I could think of easily offhand. (Also I like the character.)
It's fine, but onlookers think she's calling me "Grandpa", including her actual grandfather (my dad), so some hilarity has ensued. She speaks clearly for a five-year-old, but she is five.
This is not Jade. I labeled it without her, and thought those were wings, but that is a backpack, and this is Bone, the leader of the hunters' caste. He is wearing a backpack and does not have wings. I commented on the eyelashes and she said "well everyone has eyelashes" which isn't wrong, so. (Actually I think Raksura in scaled form have feathery thingies, not lashes per se, since they're scaled creatures without hair, but. I mean, in watercolor, they'd surely look like this too, inasmuch as anything looks like anything?)
This is actually Jade! who does not have eyelashes. IDK man. But there are some majestic wings, there.
THIS is Frost, in Arbora form.
So all artworks are the work of Willa Metzger, age 5. Maybe the world's #1 Raksura fan, or who at least has been a fan of Raksura for far larger a proportion of her total lifespan than most.
She's my sister's kid, and I spend about two weeks a month in the summers at my sister's farm each year doing farm work, so Farmkid (Willa) and I spend a bunch of time hanging out while her mom's doing Farm Stuff and have done since she was less than two. At one point, I think she might've been about three, I had my Kindle e-reader out, and she was fascinated because it glowed and I could read from it in the dark. She wanted me to read a book from the glowing Kindle to her at bedtime, and I had no children's books on there. So I thought, well... At that point I'd probably read The Cloud Roads a dozen times, so I knew I could easily avoid any inappropriate scenes.
So I started reading her The Cloud Roads. (I think I started off with an excerpt, when Moon first goes to the nurseries at Indigo Cloud, and she was so enchanted I went back and started the book, and after that she always would demand it by chanting "Moon and Chime! Moon and Chime!")
Sure, sometimes it was a bit too exciting, and sometimes I had to stop and talk about what was going on-- Flower's whole... thing hit her hard, which I had expected, and had prepared for-- and we've had some good talks about the concept of an unreliable narrator, because Moon is so paranoid, especially in the Siren Depths when he's so horribly distraught, god that book is so juicy-- it's been fantastic for her, I think, to understand that what Moon feels may not be quite what is true, and so on. And there were definitely some scenes where I had to stop and say, "Moon doesn't die here, we know because we read that story set later and he's still alive in it," because she was Overcome by the Peril. (Is that a spoiler? I don't think it's a spoiler, he's in the back jacket copy on all the books.)
The two sort of coda books, after the trilogy, have been a little more challenging because they have more adult situations in them-- I don't mean sex, though, I mean politics. The sex is super easy to handle in these books-- it's so matter-of-fact and mostly offscreen anyway, I've barely had to change a single word there. The violence, mostly I just skip a descriptive sentence here and there, and sometimes pause to talk about it. But politics? Oy. It's very hard to explain politics to a kid, and she struggled to focus, and the beginning of Edge of Worlds was pretty dense in that respect; she powered through out of sheer love of the characters. Now we're right back into the action though, and she's having no trouble keeping up.
It's been years now, and she's five and three-quarters, has started kindergarten, and can read perfectly well on her own. But I still read to her, frequently, when I'm in town. We've had long hiatuses, but she always asks for Moon And Chime again, so we go back-- and I've now read her almost all of the five books, most of the short stories in the two collections, and a number of the short-shorts on Patreon. We're in Harbors of the Sun now, and have just finished the scene where Malachite tells Pearl she doesn't need anyone to tell her to go, but she might need someone to tell her to stop.
I don't know what we'll do when we reach the end, but Farmkid has suggested perhaps we could start again at the beginning, because she barely remembers it.
I will say, the single greatest gift to her in the entire series is the scene in Harbors of the Sun where Frost gets to sit in on a grown-up Queens' Council. She has always identified with Frost, since the character was introduced-- a baby? a baby queen? of course!-- and was over the moon to see her get to interact like an adult. I am probably going to reread her that scene, and the associated materials on Patreon, many many times. It has also been, I think, really really really good for Farmkid to see the evolution of how the Fell are revealed in the books-- they start out as sort of children's movie Evil Villains at first, where just everything they do is Terrible, and it gets a great deal more complex, without getting too spoilery, by the end. It has been really fun to watch her adjust her attitudes as we meet Kethel and Consolation and First, not to be too specific or spoilery, but-- if you as a reader kind of bounced off the opening of the series because of the feeling of biological determinism, I might remind you of the unreliable narration and ask you to give it more of a shot.
Anyhow! Willa's done fanart before, but I never got it posted before. This is the latest round, arranged in a rogue's gallery on the hallway wall, and there's a special guest at the end from the other series we've started reading. Usually she draws Moon, but she left him and Chime out of this round-- maybe the most interesting thing about the last pair of books is that we get other narrators more, and this round of fanart reflects that. She drew them while I was reading, so they feature characters that were in the scenes I was reading at the time.
(the click through goes to Flickr for larger sizes)
Stone: she gave him a yellow shirt because she couldn't remember what color his shirt was, and yellow is her favorite. She likes him a lot.
Bramble.
She has taken to calling me Bramble when she's pretending to be Frost. I suggested it, because she kept slipping into having Jade be doing mothery things, and that is not how Raksura work; anyone caring for a child would be an Arbora, and Bramble was the one I could think of easily offhand. (Also I like the character.)
It's fine, but onlookers think she's calling me "Grandpa", including her actual grandfather (my dad), so some hilarity has ensued. She speaks clearly for a five-year-old, but she is five.
This is not Jade. I labeled it without her, and thought those were wings, but that is a backpack, and this is Bone, the leader of the hunters' caste. He is wearing a backpack and does not have wings. I commented on the eyelashes and she said "well everyone has eyelashes" which isn't wrong, so. (Actually I think Raksura in scaled form have feathery thingies, not lashes per se, since they're scaled creatures without hair, but. I mean, in watercolor, they'd surely look like this too, inasmuch as anything looks like anything?)
This is actually Jade! who does not have eyelashes. IDK man. But there are some majestic wings, there.
THIS is Frost, in Arbora form.
So all artworks are the work of Willa Metzger, age 5. Maybe the world's #1 Raksura fan, or who at least has been a fan of Raksura for far larger a proportion of her total lifespan than most.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 06:01 pm (UTC)I wish she didn't sound like she was calling me Grandpa, but as characters go, I do identify a fair bit with Bramble.
She's been calling her mother "Pearl" and her mom, who has read the series (sometime after her daughter got obsessed with it), loves it because it inspires her to not really do anything but offer sarcastic commentary, which is perfectly in character and helps my sister not feel quite so harried as a mother.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 07:37 pm (UTC)Just mentioning this series gives me the urge to reread Cloud Roaddds
no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 08:29 pm (UTC)Slowly reading them to the niece is great because I think I've managed to do two rereads on this basis alone. I'm waiting, though, to finish Harbors again, so I can then dive back into Cloud Roads and be amazed by how much Moon has changed.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 11:02 pm (UTC)Re: Moon's unreliable narratorness, it's really interesting that both you and Farmkid are having fun exploring that. I was much, much older than 5 when I started being able to notice unreliable narrators, and much much older when I started having some affection for them via fic tropes.
(I actually bounced off the Raksura books at some point in high school or college because I picked up one of the middle books at the library, and I had no idea who all these winged or unwinged people were or why Moon was so annoyed by all of them, and couldn't figure out whether they were treating him unfairly or he was just a jerk. Neither was fun to read! But of course, neither is true... and with the proper setup and context from Cloud Road, and understanding What Is Up With Moon, reading Moon being annoyed by everyone is now pretty delightful.)
no subject
Date: 2019-10-12 08:45 am (UTC)https://archiveofourown.org/works/4482455