Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
The Quest of the Warrior Sheep
Fiction Series
For ages 9 to 11
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2011 ISBN: 978-1402255113
One day the five rare breed sheep, Sal, Lincoln, Jaycey, Wills, and Oxo are quietly minding their own business in their field in Eppingham when a silver cell phone falls out of the sky and hits Sal on the head. Sal, who knows the Songs of Fleece, all of them, off by heart decides that the phone, which has the words Ramrom.com written on it, is the Baaton, a sheep talisman that is mentioned in the Songs of Fleece and that is cared for by Aries the Good, the sheep god. If Lambad the Bad gets his hoofs on the Baaton, then Aries “the Sheep Daddy of them all” will die.
There are then Sal decides that she and her friends must take the Baaton north and save Aries the Good from Lambad the Bad. Soon, the five friends are crashing through the fence around their field and they are heading north. What they don’t know is that the Baaton is actually the cell phone belonging to a local crook. This criminal has stored vital information on the phone and he wants it back. When he realizes that the sheep have his phone, he sets about doing everything he can to retrieve it.
The problem is that the five sheep are very clever, and somehow they keep slipping through the crook’s fingers. To complicate matters even more, the sheep’s owner Ida White, and her grandson Tod are also on the move, and Tony Catchpole, an Eppingham farmer is also in pursuit of the sheep. Tony thinks that the sheep were abducted by aliens and that they have been altered to be “bionic, thinking, super sheep.”
For readers who like car cashes, unlikely heroes, and plenty of wildly amusing action, this book is a must. The characters are deliciously funny, and readers will find themselves rooting for the five sheep, who truly are heroes.
