A Review of The Scorpio Races (Audiobook)

By Maggie Stiefvater

* Note: This blog fulfills a course requirement at TWU.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stiefvater, Maggie. The Scorpio Races. Read by Steve West and Fiona Hardingham. Scholastic Audio Books. 2011 ISBN:  0545357020

PLOT SUMMARY

The Scorpio Races is set on a small island called Thisby. The book opens with a prologue featuring Sean Kendrick, a 10-year-old boy on the beach helping his father get his capall uisce (water horse) ready for the big annual race. Water horses are dangerous and often kill and eat their riders. Sean notices his father is scared and he wishes that the red horse they are preparing for the race does not eat his dad. However, it is a gray horse that attacks and eats his father and Sean says, “Nothing is as red as the sea that day” (Prologue). Sean vows never to be afraid again. Fast forward nine years, and readers meet Kate “Puck” Connolly, who along with Sean, are the joint protagonists of this story. Puck has her own horse, a real horse named Dove. Puck and her brother Finn race to the beach and see one of the water horses emerge from the water. Readers find out that Puck and Finn’s parents were killed by water horses. Sean is now working on a farm as a stable boy when he hears that the water horses have surfaced, which means the Scorpio Races are getting close. Sean rides his water horse, Corr, every year in the race, so this is good news. Sean catches, trains, and sometimes kills water horses, so he is very familiar with them. Puck’s oldest brother, Gabe, tells her and Finn that he is leaving the island and not taking his two siblings with him. In order to get him to stay, Puck suggests that she will ride a water horse in the race, which will earn money for her and her siblings if she wins. Gabe decides to stay through the race. Puck is the first girl to enter the race and the men are reluctant to sell her a water horse, so she decides to ride her land horse, Dove, in the race. The village is totally against Puck entering the race. Puck and Sean meet and grow close; perhaps falling in love, but only one of them can win the race. The climax of the story is the exciting, albeit terrifying race with an ultimate winner. The ending is stunning and will have the reader thinking about it for hours after the book is over. Highly recommended!

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Steve West and Fiona Hardingham both do an outstanding job of narrating the parts of Sean Kendrick and Puck Connolly and bringing those characters to life. Both characters are strong resilient young people. Stiefvater writing style is captivating. The setting indicates that the island of Thisby is Irish because of several references to traditional Irish culture. The reader is exposed to the violence of the water horses and the fear they cause. Family is an important theme, whether it is Puck trying to keep what’s left of her family together or Sean and Puck’s relationship with their horses. Gender plays an important role since the Scorpio Races has never allowed a woman to race before Puck and she has to overcome adversity in order to compete. This also ties in to tradition because the women in the village do not want Puck to compete either, as one woman says to Puck, “I’m all for women, but this isn’t a woman’s game” (Chapter 10). This is a completely different book than I have encountered. For a fantasy genre book, it takes the reader into a fictional world that is easy to become enraptured with. The Scorpio Races makes me want to investigate other books by Maggie Stiefvater.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

·         Michael L. Printz Award Honor, 2012

·         The Odyssey Honor Award 2012 for Best Audio Production

·         Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books of 2011

·         Amazon's Best Books for Teens 2011

·         School Library Journal's Best Books of the Year

·         Kirkus' Best Teen Books of the Year (2011)

·         Horn Book Best Books of 2011

·         Children's Book Committee 2012 Best Children's Books of the Year

·         YALSA Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, 2012

The New York Times Book Review - “Stiefvater not only steps out of the young adult fantasy box with “The Scorpio Races” but crushes it with pounding hooves…. If “The Scorpio Races” sounds like nothing you've ever read, that's because it is.”

School Library Journal - “Upon the sea-battered and wind-swept isle of Thisby, fall brings the famed and feared capaill uisce, or water horses, and with them, death . . . The author takes great liberties with the Celtic myth, but the result is marvelous.”

Horn Book Review - “Stiefvater's novel, inspired by Manx, Irish, and Scottish legends of beautiful but deadly fairy horses that emerge from the sea each autumn, begins rivetingly and gets better and better . . . all the way, in fact, to best.”

CONNECTIONS

Read other books by Maggie Stiefvater, including:

·         Stiefvater, Maggie. The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle). 2012. ISBN: 0545424925.

·         Stiefvater, Maggie. Shiver. 2009. ISBN: 0545123267.

·         Stiefvater, Maggie. Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie. 2009. ISBN: 0738714844.

Ø  Many of Stiefvater’s books are series, such as Shiver and the Raven Boys mentioned above, so if you like the first one, chances are that you will enjoy the others as well.

Ø  Scorpio Races is being made into a movie from Warner Brothers.