The cover of “The Silver Road” is great, a mythical giant Irish elk, carrying two people, is in a mysterious wood with ice, hail, and a silver road. This sets the scene for a thoroughly entertaining read. Irish mythology, a wonderful treasure trove of verbal history, has been borrowed by Sińead O’Hart for the canvas upon which she has embroidered a powerful picture from her logical imagination. Our heroine, 13 year old Rosie, suffers at school from bullies and from being less well off.she has a background of the old stories passed on to her from her granny. In the modern world we are losing our ability to relate to religion, magic, and the old tales, and yet the “Harry Potter” phenomenon shows that we still, somewhere deep down, fundamentally know that there is more to our world than holidays and consumer goods, and this book taps into that. How Rosie discovers that she has been chose to guard a secret “thing” and the trouble she goes through to succeed are cleverly layered one on another. The shape changing and fantastic creatures,friends and foes, are scary at times, but Rosie is Irish and has the history built into her DNA. Even though it is hard, she can cope with the frights and challenges, fortified by good friends and a family that is totally united even though they have a hard life. The script is very well crafted, flows like magic, and the various forces at play in the world, both good and evil, that these days we dismiss, are still there in the background- you have been warned! As the story shape-forms into a chest tightening huge thunder cloud of a crescendo, we are sucked into a massive war of evil forces, so we’ll described you will wonder how you survive! This is a really well thought out book. It is very well produced too - the designs that creep up the sides and along the bottom of some pages add a lot to the words. A masterpiece of story telling worthy of the highest Irish tradition.
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