Forest Born by Shannon Hale

I heard about this book from Kerry's book blog. This book is the fourth volume of the Books of Bayern. I liked this book so much that I've decided to read the rest of the series. I also liked that I was able to jump in at book 4 and understand everything that was going on.

Forest Born is a beautiful sort of coming-of-age story about a girl named Rinna who, like the title suggests, was of the forest. She is very close to nature and draws peace by communicating with the trees. She decides to leave home and goes off with her big brother Rizzo to the city to be a hand maid to the queen. Adventure takes Rinna along with others she has met away from the castle where they all experience danger and excitement. Along their adventure Rinna grows into herself and her abilities and finds new friends in Queen Isi, Enna, and Dasha. I won't go into particulars because I wouldn't want to ruin the story for anyone. I enjoyed this book enough to sincerely recommend it to others. The language and imagery is beautiful and magical and the characters are fun. This book made me really want to read the other books in the series; in fact, I have book one checked out from the library and plan on starting it tonight or tomorrow. I recommend this book to anyone, though I would probably suggest starting with book one. Good read!

4 out of 5 stars