KATE CRACKERNUTS

by K. M. Briggs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1980

From the Scottish folk tale of the same name, Briggs has developed a full-bodied historical novel. Knowing the outline, one has the pleasure of admiring how Briggs works each predetermined step into her complex tapestry. The background is a meticulously realized 17th-century Scotland, rife with family splits, distrust, witchcraft, political conflict, and war. As in the folk tale, free-roving Kate Maxwell and gently reared Katherine Lindsay become close friends in early childhood. When Katherine's beloved nurse returns to Sweden to marfy, her long-widowed father (not a king here but just a local laird) marries the other Kate's mother for his own daughter's sake. But, as Kate Maxwell comes to realize to her distress, her mother is not only treacherously jealous of Katherine, but a witch besides. As in the folk tale, Katherine is sent to the hen-wife (another witch) and emerges with an ugly sheep's head in place of her own fair one. Wisely, Briggs surrounds this element in the tale with a sprinkling of fairy dust: Kate Maxwell is never sure whether the head (which she can't see) is mere ""glamour"" worked on Katherine's mind, or whether it is real as her sister insists. Either way it causes both girls anguish during their flight from home and their subsequent wanderings--until Kate once more faces witches and fairies to break both her sister's enchantment and that of a handsome, well-born young man met at (what will be for her) journey's end. This is the sort of historical novel that gives every supporting character a firm place and family background and a character to match, and Briggs is the sort of writer who inspires readers' faith that every country fair and stone on the path (and every fairy revel) occurred just where and when she says it did. She proves here as successful at sounding the more serious personal conflicts and deeper satisfactions of ""Kate Crackernuts"" as she was at bringing the world of hobgoblin Hobberdy Dick (1977) to brimming life.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Greenwillow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION