JO KADLECEK reads the Kate DiCamillo’s latest novel for younger readers, ‘The Beatryce Prophecy’…
Kate DiCamillo (with illustrations by Sophie Blackall)
The Beatryce Prophecy
Walker Books, Sydney, Australia, 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1529503623
“The Beatryce Prophecy continues DiCamillo’s quirky and beloved literary tradition of bringing readers into a tale that could be set in the middle-ages or a futuristic fantasy. In this kingdom, monks struggle to believe, girls cannot read (it’s against the law) and goats either save or attack, depending on their temperament.”
For anyone who’s read any book by Kate DiCamillo, you’re not surprised when you visit her website and are immediately welcomed with this:
“The world is dark and light is precious.
Come closer, dear reader.
You must trust me. I am telling you a story.”
And trust we do. Whether in her best-selling novels Because of Winn Dixie or The Tale of Despereaux or her more recent adventures such as The Magician’s Elephant or Flora and Ulysses, the award-winning American children’s author is indeed a trustworthy enchantress, welcoming and inviting readers to that place where books are magical and journeys inspiring.
Each of DiCamillo’s stories are full of light and compassion: there is mercy for the marginalised dog (or mouse or squirrel), and grace for the lonely humans who occupy her stories. In her world, love is the goal and stories are the door to find it. Empathy becomes an easy take away.
And so, The Beatryce Prophecy continues DiCamillo’s quirky and beloved literary tradition of bringing readers into a tale that could be set in the middle-ages or a futuristic fantasy. In this kingdom, monks struggle to believe, girls cannot read (it’s against the law) and goats either save or attack, depending on their temperament.
Beatryce mysteriously arrives in Brother Edik’s monastery and immediately wins the protection of Answelica the goat, whose hard head has rammed many a monk into hiding. When she awakens, she is unsure of how or why she has arrived, and certain only of her name.
“What world is this I now inhabit, and how shall I live in it?” our heroine asks at the first sight of the balding, wild-eyed monk and the cranky but doting goat.
What she begins to learn – because of Edik’s patience and Answelica’s head butts – is that she is being hunted, that there is a prophecy about a girl-child who will one day unseat a king and that no one knows exactly why – or will tell her at least. When Beatryce discovers, with Brother Edik watching, that she can make sense of those squiggly lines known as letters in an alphabet, he realises the prophecy has come to pass – if the girl can survive.
Enter the adventure. Beatryce is convinced she must make it back from whence she came to save her family, though her memory of them is fuzzy but luring. Along the way, goat in tow, she meets swords and danger and friends, of course. Until eventually, she finds what she is looking for, and justice is served in an otherwise story-less land.
Readers need not worry about being bored on this journey with Beatryce and her unexpected team of bodyguards – we are caught from the first sentence: “Answelica was a goat with teeth that were the mirror of her soul – large, sharp and uncompromising.”
Along the way, we are treated to insights that make DiCamillo’s stories so lovely and captivating: “We shall all, in the end, be led to the place where we belong,” the narrator explains, “We shall all, in the end, find our way home.”
Why? Because as Beatrice learns, “Nothing is more terrifying to evil than joy!”
Yes, The Beatryce Prophecy is equal parts parable, commentary and adventure story, a tale that enchants with each sentence, character and theme, and keeps even the oldest (grey-haired) child among us captivated. That’s DiCamillo’s gift – she gives us permission to, as CS Lewis said, admit that we “will one day be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
The Beatryce Prophecy is a great book with which to start. Because The world is dark and light is precious and this is a story worth drawing close to.
