Author: Robert Beatty
Pages: 293
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Copyright: 2015
Rating: Can’t Put It Down
So technically this isn’t categorized as “young adult” fiction but I want to tell you why I think it should be and why it landed in my month of young adult reviews. My 10 year old received this book as a Christmas gift and while he was off engaged in other adventures over Christmas vacation, I took the opportunity to do a read through so I could see what it was all about. Serafina and the Black Cloak is technically listed as a “middle grade book”, recommended for readers between ages 8-12. It was on the New York Times Best Seller list for 59+ weeks, ranked #1 middle grade book on Goodreads, and won the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize amongst other awards and accolades. From personal experience, it is a fantastic book. So much so that I promptly headed to the library and checked out the other two books in the series: Serafina and the Twisted Staff and Serafina and the Splintered Heart. Word to the wise, you might as well plan to read all three books. Although each book wraps up nicely and could stand alone, the full story of Serafina is not complete unless you read the entire series. I tend to be a faster reader, and each book only took me 2-3 hours to read total, maybe less if I didn’t have to do that whole adult thing called mothering.
Beatty does an amazing job of capturing the reader’s attention from the get-go and I was quickly immersed in this interesting protagonist named Serafina. Serafina lives a quiet life with her “Pa”, the maintenance man of the Biltmore Estate, sleeping on a cot in the boiler room and cat-napping throughout the day in order to fulfill her duties as the CRC (Chief Rat Catcher) during the night hours when everyone else in the estate is asleep. Serafina has some interesting characteristics that set her apart from the typical 12 year old girl and she is always wondering what happened to her mother and why she doesn’t seem to quite fit in.
Sounds Great….Why Wait?
As you can see, I gave the book my highest rating. That being said, let’s talk about why I’m not going to let my 10 year old read this quite yet. So here I was happily losing myself in this book, when at about page 16 things started to take a bit of a turn. During one of her nightly rounds, Serafina finds herself witnessing an altercation between a grown man and a young teenage girl in the bowels of the Biltmore. As my eyes flowed over the page, I found my heart starting to race, my breath turning fast and shallow and my palms become sweaty. All the characteristics of a good thriller I suppose, but this situation hit my heart harder because I sincerely thought I was about to read about child rape. I got to the end of the chapter (about 4 pages later) and emphatically slammed the book shut, to the point that my husband gave me a sidelong glance and asked “are you okay?”. After a few deliberate slow breaths, I responded that the book was just really intense. I read the passage aloud to my husband and he agreed that although no rape occurs, the reader could certainly draw that possible conclusion. ***Minor Spoiler Alert*** What actually occurs is that this man uses a magical black cloak to surround the child and she disappears, having had her soul sucked into the folds of the cloak as a prison and her mortal body disappearing entirely. Fun, huh!?
Now in all fairness, a child of the age of 8-12 with little to no sexual knowledge might not jump to the conclusion of rape. They may read it as it comes, taking in what actually happens at face value as a use of evil magic and the introduction of the main villain. But as an adult coming at the book following the #metoo movement and the uncovering of the prevalent sexual abuse that is rampant in Hollywood (and really in the general population as well) against both children and adults, I believe it was only natural for me to react as I did. And really, isn’t rape a real-life assault on the soul? The person may not disappear like the children do in the book, but life as a person knows it before sexual assault does disappear, never to be quite the same, wouldn’t you agree? If you are a survivor of assault or parenting a child that is a survivor, you will understand the concern for a possible trigger in this story.
The author does what every great author should do…lead the reader into being completely wrapped up in the story as if they were there. Best seller or not, I’m okay with waiting for my 10 year old to not imagine being “with” this character in her adventures quite yet. The books are dark from the get-go and they don’t get any less dark. There are so many things in life where I don’t feel like time is on my side, but time IS on my side on this one. I will give my child time to learn lots of other stories from equally great books, for once something is in the mind of a person, it cannot be undone. This is why I believe this book would be best suited in the young adult classification, and if read at a younger age it should be done with much parental discernment and discussion.
So as not to lose sight of why I gave the book such a high rating, it is important to remember the many positives of this book. Serafina exemplifies bravery, loyalty, and perseverance, characteristics we all hope to see develop in our children. Robert Beatty provides storytelling that weaves just the right amount of thrill, mystery, and adventure that propels the reader to finish the book in one sitting if time allows. Evil magic is is fought by the good magic of friendship, intelligence and ingenuity and is why this is a book (and series) to be approached with the expectation of great entertainment.