Book of a Thousand Days

Title: Book of a Thousand Days


Author: Shannon Hale


Summary:  Dashti is a mucker who lives on the Asian steppes.  When she is orphaned, she goes to be lady's maid to one of the "gentry," Lady Saren.  Saren will not marry Lord Khasar, because she wants to marry Khan Tegus.  Lord Khasar is favored by her father, but Saren doesn't want to marry him.  So her father shuts her in a three-story brick tower with Dashti and a seven-year supply of food.  The only openings to the outside are tiny ventilation holes and a refuse flap.  Through this refuse flap Dashti has a conversation with Khan Tegus, pretending to be Saren.  Ordinarily this would be a crime, but Saren commanded Dashti.  Then Lord Khasar comes and speaks through the hole after Tegus leaves.  He kills all the guards.  Finally, Dashti finds an escape hole.  Saren's city, Titor's Garden, was destroyed by Khasar.  She manages to reach Tegus' city, Song for Evela, with Saren.  She gets work with Saren in the kitchens as a scrubber.  She is summoned to Tegus to sing for his leg and a friend to be healed.  She pretends to be Saren (again on Saren's orders).  Saren shares that Khasar is a wolf shape-changer.  Then she sneaks out and tries to make the sieging lord Khasar become his wolf form by singing the wolf-song.  It works, and Khasar dies.  But then Tegus wants to marry her, thinking she is Saren.  Dashti can't so she runs away and leaves her journal behind.  She is found out and about to be killed for pretending to be Saren when Tegus defends her (with words) in front of the council.  Saren doesn't want to marry Tegus so Dashti marries Tegus. 


Stars:  9 for a very developed plot. 


Violence: 6 for arrows shooting at a wolf, "gentry" slapping each other and some muckers, and mention of war. 


Romance: 5, because it was not very descriptive, it just described the smells of people.  But it still mentioned kissing. 


Language: 0 (yes, I KNOW that I've said this before, but there were no bad words).


Appropriate for: Older children to young adults. 


Other: I liked the format, how it was laid out as Dashti's journal.  I also admired how the plot was intricate and developed.  I liked the small ink drawings periodically in the text.  They looked as if they really were drawn with a brush.  They almost look like watercolor painted only in black.