I’ll be chatting with Sandy Fussell about the background and setting of her new book Samurai Kids: Monkey Fist on Wednesday, 5 August as part of her blog tour to celebrate the release of Monkey Fist, the fourth in her Samurai Kids series. [You will find detail of the blog tour schedule at the end of this blog.]
Thinking it prudent to find out something of the ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘what’ issues behind this series, I hurried to my local library and borrowed the first three in the Samurai Kids series - White Crane, Owl Ninja and Shaolin Tiger.
A delighful surprise awaited me! I found myself immersed in the world of Samurai in a refreshing and unexpected way. I sat for a while in the ‘School of Cockroaches ‘(Cockroach Ryu) under the wise tutelege of the Sensei Ki-Yaga.
‘Many years ago,’ he tells them, ‘in the early mists of the mountaim Ryujin, the dragon went walking. A dragon has scales of steel but his feet are soft. It trod on a thorn. The great creature roared in pain. Huge claws could not remove something so small.
‘Wind carried Ryujin’s cries deep into the Earth, but the other animals closed their ears. No-one wanted to help the cruel, boastful dragon. Only Gokiburi, the cockroach came to help. The cockroach was kind and wise “I will help you because no creature is so great it stands alone. Even a proud dragon must sometimes bend to a cockroach,” it said.
‘The dragon bowed and the cockroach removed the thorn.
‘So you see, Little Cockroaches, when the time comes, you will find power over the dragon. Bad breath and big feet are not to be feared.'
Sensei Ki-Yaga is preparing his most unlikely students for a great battle to come. There is one-legged Niya who tells the story; Kyoko, the albino girl; Mikko a one-armed boy; the blind boy, Taji. Yoshi who is doesn’t quite know who he is; and, Nezume, the last one. Not one of them alone can meet the challenges they will face, but as a unit, not only do they discover their strength and learn skills from various martial arts disciplines, they enjoy great adventure. These threads link the books of the series - and yet allow each to stand alone in an inspiring read.
Be sure to join the blog tour of Samurai Kids: Monkey Fist that begins on Saturday August 1, 2009 - and I’ll be back with more right here on Wednesday August 5.
Tour Schedule:
Date Host Location
1 Aug Dee White http://tips4youngwriters.wordpress.com/
2 Aug Dale Harcombe http://www.livejournal.com/users/orangedale
3 Aug Claire Saxby http://www.letshavewords.blogspot.com/
4 Aug Sally Odgers http://spinningpearls.blogspot.com/
5 Aug Mabel Kaplan http://belka37.blogspot.com/ [That's right here]
6 Aug Sally Murphy http://sallymurphy.blogspot.com/
7 Aug Robyn Opie http://www.robynopie.blogspot.com/
8 Aug Rebecca Newman http://www.soupblog.wordpress.com/
9 Aug Susan Stephenson http://thebookchook.blogspot.com/
Posts
When you post your interview with Sandy tomorrow could you PLEASE post the correct link to my blog for my interview with Sandy on the 10th it is actually http://jefferyedoherty.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteThere was an error in the initial post about the tour.
Thanks muchly
Jeff Doherty