#RedwallSeries

[dreamkitsworld]

How old are apprentices? 

Very light spoilers with warrior name and protagonist reveals.

How old are apprentices? 

What I mean here, is how old are the characters in relation to human ages. Because there are several ways you can go about figuring this out. 

I’m getting this out of the way now. There are a lot of charts comparing human ages to cats, like this one from Pumpkin Pet Insurance, that shows that at 6 months old, cats are roughly 10 and at 12 months they’re 15. In my experience with cats, this is fine. A one year old cat tends to go through a moody teen phase that they seem to age out of by the time they’re 2, and this goes along with the chart nicely.  

I’m setting aside the real cat ages charts, though. I think that that they’re really not helpful in figuring out ages of these characters. The cats in Warriors really don’t resemble their real-life counterparts at all, and I don’t think that Warriors is sending out child soldiers here. 

Instead we’re going to solve this puzzle by talking about a super exciting topic… Marketing in the book industry! 

If you're feeling impatient you can jump right to Tl;dr at the end.

Marketing and Children’s Literature

Warriors is marketed as a middle grade book series, but what does that mean? 

First, you need to understand that until very recently, children’s literature was all under one umbrella. Also, there were very few teen books running around. Teen Librarian Toolbox has a good info graphic about the history of YA literature, and how it became a branch of its own. This was a slow progression, but I feel pretty confident that YA didn’t come to full maturity until the early 2000s. For context, Into the Wild was released in September of 2003. This was right as Harry Potter was becoming seriously popular, and just before the really big boom series of the 2000s. As someone who was 13 in 2003, I’m telling you from experience the teen fantasy section was sparse at my local library. From 2003-2010 the section really exploded into a lot of different books, but in 2003 specifically there wasn’t a lot going on.

In publishing, and writing, marketing is absolutely everything. You need to identify a target audience, so that bookstores and libraries know where to put the book. Warriors came out kind of in the middle of the Redwallseries being published. In the 1980s, when it was first released, it was marketed as Children’s Literature. Warriors has a lot in common with Redwall, enough that the two series would be targeting the same audience. Redwall was Children’s Literature, which by the time Warriors was released in 2003 has split into Middle Grade and YA. 

So, if you’re a marketing director and you’re publishing books in the early 2000s, your options are publishing a book aimed at the same demographics as an already established series in a genre that was more established, or taking a risk on the new YA field. The obvious choice is to go with the first option. 

 So, how do you know if a book is middle grade? 

The Novelry has a great article that discusses how to tell if a book is for the YA or Middle Grade crowds. If you scroll down and take a look at the chart they made, Warriors is a very interesting series. Let’s take a look at some stats. 

Criteria 1: Word Count

Middle Grade books are 30k-50k words

YA: 50k-75k words

The Prophecies Begin: Average of 70,627 words across the whole arc

Point for YA. 

Criteria 2: Romance

Middle Grade: Romance is light and fluffy. Some crushes and first kisses. 

YA: Range of possible relationships, explicit sex is often off screen. Complex romance is possible, including cheating and forbidden love.

I think it’s obvious The Prophecies Begin have a lot of messy romantic things going on. It does still skirt around the issue of sex, but it was 2003. 

Another point for YA. 

Criteria 3: Violence

Middle Grade: Vague, limited violence that isn’t too graphic. 

YA: Well, yeah. YA can get dark. 

I think it’s obvious Warriors falls into the YA category here as well. 

In all 3 cases, Warriors is clearly a YA book. But, it’s not marketed that way. They can get away with this because… 

The Characters are Cats

I once had the opportunity of meeting Tui Sutherland at a literary convention I had attended, and during her panel and my conversation with her afterward, she talked about her Wings of Fire series. She commented that one reason Wings of Fire was able to do the things it did, was because the characters aren’t human. This is a really important detail, because of a 4th criterion I purposefully left out. 

Criteria 4: Age of Characters

The general rule of thumb is that kids read up. Meaning that they like to read books about characters that are slightly older than themselves. If your target audience is age 10, then you need characters who are 12. If you are aiming for 14, your characters need to be 16-18. 

Tui Sutherland’s point about Wings of Fire was that age didn’t matter because her characters were dragons, and so didn’t need to follow the normal rules of character ages. 

At a different convention, I had the opportunity to see Tamora Pierce in a panel discussion, and she made a really interesting comment about her own Tortall series. Back in the 80s, as I mentioned earlier, there was only children’s literature. You didn’t have the same marketing divides. Her character Alana, who at the start of The Song of the Lioness quartet was 10, was free to grow up through the series without having issues. She also could include some heavier themes, because there wasn’t a hard line between ages yet. Pierce during the panel mentioned that Song of the Lioness couldn’t have been written today as-is because of the new marketing landscape. Harry Potter kind of slipped into the same category, since the series started in the early 1990s. 

The point is, the other criteria don’t actually matter that much. At least, not when compared to age. The age of the characters drives the rest of the book, and forces it to fall in line with the other criteria I discussed above. 

But, like Wings of Fire, Warrior exists outside of the normal rules because the characters aren’t human. Warriors is basically a YA series that is masquerading as Middle Grade so they could snag the Redwallreaders and have a safe market to sell books. It’s a loophole in marketing.

Which brings us back to the original question…

How Old Are Apprentices? 

Tl;dr: I’m pretty confident that apprentices are about 13-14 years old in human terms.

In order to be convincing middle grade books, the characters need to start their journeys at the correct middle grade ages. The content of the books is clearly edging into territory that is not suitable for young readers (think age 8), so they’re really trying to target the 11-14 crowd. Since kids read up, the characters in the beginning need to match that expectation. 

Which is why every new arc has an apprentice floating around in the first books. It’s the character designed to draw in the middle grade readers. They’ve also, if you’ve noticed, had protagonist point of view characters shared with very young warriors. 

Hmmmm?!

Yeah, that’s to catch the YA crowd. I think that young warriors are something like 17-18 years old.  

To prove my point, here are the main point of view characters by arc: 

Arc Two (The New Prophecy)

Apprentices : Squirrelpaw, Leafpaw

Young Warriors: Brambleclaw, Stormfur

Arc Three (Power of Three)

Apprentices: Lionpaw, Jaypaw, Hollypaw

Arc Four (Omen of the Stars)

Apprentices: Dovepaw, Ivypaw

Young Warriors: Jayfeather, Lionblaze, Flametail

Arc Five (A Vision of Shadows)

Apprentices: Alderpaw*, Violetpaw, Twigpaw

Young Warriors: Alderheart

Arc Six (Broken Code)

Apprentices: Shadowpaw, Rootpaw

Young Warriors: Bristlefrost

There are only two notable exceptions of the series starting with both apprentices and older cats, and that’s Power of Three and A Vision of Shadows. Power of Three is a bit unique in that I think it was attempting to do a sort of soft reboot with a new cast of characters and get new readers. A Vision of Shadows is kind of interesting, because most of Alderheart’s characters arc is actually in book one of that arc. After that he serves as the young warrior. I actually think that this is a 5 book arc with a prequel. The arc really gets going in book 2 with Violetkit and Twigkit. 

In The Broken Code, Shadowpaw and Bristlefrost start the series as either nearly warrior age or already a warrior-age. Shadowpaw’s siblings are both warriors at the start of this arc. 

The fact that these are cats, allows them to age up into adults. With a normal human character, this just wouldn’t happen. And not just because of the time skip issues, because as we see with Song of the Lioness, a series can allow the characters to grow and even have children of their own. As Tamora Pierce and Tui Sutherland pointed out, today’s marketing landscape just doesn’t allow for human stories like this now. And that’s a shame, because I think we’re losing out on some great stories due to these arbitrary marketing rules. 

[luncalxartwork]

The Battle of Matthias and Cluny_WIP3

Current WIP at the moment. I wanted to do a piece that is the final battle between Cluny, the Scourge and Matthias of Redwall. I loved this series as a kid and honestly want to read them all again.

Posted using PostyBirb

[lostmidnightwriter]

Day 5 - Ancient

I don't think I gush about Redwall enough. I found this book series when I was around 7 years old, and to this day I can't find a writer with a cooler qritting style than Brian Jacques. His stories are compelling and breathtaking (and honestly, pretty dark for young adult novels, but that's why they're so neat), the characters are so fleshed out and interesting, and who has ever read any of his books and didn't feel hungry after any description of food? So, here's Matthias, the lad who started this series.

[whythisfilm]

🎉HAPPY BIRTHDAY🎊 To author Brian Jacques who would have turned 80 today.. Known for his Redwall series, which book ws your favourite? Did you ever watch the animated TV show? . . . . . . . #botd #bfopnetwork #brianjacques #happybirthday #authorsofinstagram #author #redwall #mattimeo #mossflower #martinthewarrior #nostalgic #nostalgia #animation #redwallbooks #redwalltvseries #redwallabbey #redwallseries #redwalltvshow #podcastlife #podcasting #podcasterofinstagram #podcaster https://www.instagram.com/p/CBcpOOHHgar/?igshid=x9x1zz8mvm4z

[butmaybeshewheel-blog]

Yesterday I got to meet genuine members of the Long Patrol, rabbit guardians of the Badger Lord at Salamandastron and it made my life complete #redwallseries #brianjacques #wheresmartinthewarrior (at Charleston, South Carolina)

[theartistlibrarian]

#literaryjune17 Day 13: Childhood Favorite - I might not be as crazy of a fan as I was as a kid (anyone else memorize Redwall poems and riddles?) but I still love reading these takes over and over. #victorpubliclibraryjune17 - Fave Series *points up* #readingadventuresjune17 - My favorite standalone in this series was Rakkety Tam. Over time, his books kind of got repetitive-ish, but by introducing Scottish squirrels, he brought back the novelty for a novel. 😉 #quoththejnebookchallenge - Brian Jacques is definitely one of my favorite authors, plus he's 🇬🇧 (#yadjune17 - European author)! #grimmdragon - I usually hawk these books at the library to kids who enjoyed Erin Hunter's Warrior series. Even though it's older, I still think it has a timeless feel. #rfabjune - OTPs - that HEA = Matthias/Cornflower, are ambiguous/just friends? = Mariel/Dandin (I totally shipped them romantically), and tragic = Martin/Rose. Bonus bromance = Martin/Gonff. #TheArtistLibrarian #brianjacques #redwall #bookstagram #instabook #booksofinstagram #booknerd #bookgeek #booknerdigan #bookish #bookphotography #booklove #bookstagrammer #bookchallenge #talesofredwall #redwallseries #riotgrams

[sydneythelibrarian]

#Mossflower by #BrianJacques has the words "carousel of doom" typed out in a battle scene. I'm in love! #RedwallSeries #CurrentlyReading https://www.instagram.com/p/BnkMReXF4ta/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1k9r2yh9swybk

[gospelfan14]

So THIS is what happens when my dad is really over Son Jose's...yessss. #OliveGarden #Redwallseries #dinner #whatacombo (at Olive Garden Buena Park)

[thekailei]

#redwallseries by @the_camera (Taken with Instagram)

[theartistlibrarian]

Day 16 #springintobooks17/#marchofbearsandelks - Book/Cover Buy: I never knew this Redwall special edition exists! Ten years later, I have my own copy. ^_^ I wish there was a 30th anniversary edition ... But how would you top this set? Do you have a favorite special edition book? #marchnovelgram - Series you're not over: Yes ... I still need to read The Rogue Crew. :-) #bookishfoodiesmar - Awesome Books! #TheArtistLibrarian #brianjacques #redwall #bookstagram #instabook #booksofinstagram #booknerd #bookgeek #booknerdigan #bookish #bookphotography #booklove #bookstagrammer #bookchallenge #talesofredwall #redwallseries

[gospelfan14]

Nice break from the roughness of today. #dessert #SableQuean #Redwallseries #todayhasbeenastruggle (at Periard Place)

[gospelfan14]

Get to read one of my Christmas presents!! #Redwallseries #OutcastofRedwall #SunflashtheMace #BadgerLord (at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse)