Wilderlore The Accidental Apprentice, a book series with quick hooks

On its surface, Wilderlore, The Accidental Apprentice seems like a book that you’ve read before. For me, it’s because I recently read Fartquest, a book whose tone is quite different but does share an overarching theme in common with it. Those older readers might even find threads of How to Train your Dragon, Nevermoor, or LOTR in the book. As you might have guessed, The Accidental Apprentice involves a quest that has monsters, beasts, and kingdoms. The mglit angle is firmly hit by the book because it’s one that middle school readers will enjoy due to the fact that it’s fun, has a very quick pace, and a pair of teen characters who will ride their imagination.

Barclay is an apprentice to the town’s mushroom farmer. It’s a guaranteed safe, easy life that is just what he’s looking for because the town will always love them. All of this gets put at risk when he ventures off into the woods one day and accidentally bonds with a beast. The woods are a forbidden place to go for people in Dullshire because of the things that supposedly lurk there. There are monsters, strange folk, and beasts of all sorts that basically ensure you never go home again.

So, when Barclay goes into the woods and has a beast latch onto him he goes into a panic. It’s worth noting that when a beast bonds with you they’re not always around in a physical form. They’ll come and go, and summoning them, or getting them to appear when you want them takes time to master. The beasts do leave a physical mark on you, which, for better or worse, allows others to know that you’ve bonded with one.  Think of these beasts like the stray cat in your neighborhood, except the size of a horse, possibly having magical powers and certainly able to eat you within a couple of bites.

 Unfortunately for Barclay, Dullshire is a place where monsters and magic and forbidden. However, just like Kevin Bacon in Footloose, he’s got the fever and the magic that Barclay has been given can rear its head at any time. Determined that the beast’s bonding was a mistake, and intent on getting it out of his system he trods back into the woods to find someone who can assist.

He quickly meets Viola, a young girl similar in age to him, but resentful of the fact that he’s been branded by such a rare and powerful beast. The two of them venture deeper into the woods to find someone who could possibly remove, transfer or otherwise get Barclay back to his old, familiar self.

Wilderlore The Accidental Apprentice is a very fun book to read. That’s a simple statement that means a lot when it comes to a book that middle school students will want to read. There are those books that are assigned to them and those books that they’ll want to read. Sometimes, when you’re lucky and the book is really good, that book will cross over into both categories. As this book is released in March 2021, it’s too new to be on the radar of some educators, but it’s one that they’ll want students to read.

The chapter length is perfect for those upper-elementary through middle school readers. Each character has growth, as well as multiple things to compare or contrast. I’m teaching a class on that now to fifth graders and they’re searching high and low for things to do that to in their books. Slightly older readers won’t have that issue. Wilderlore The Accidental Apprentice is the first in this book series by Amanda Foody and it’s one that will engage readers for multiple years.

Wilderlore The Accidental Apprentice is by Amanda Foody and available on Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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