Foretelling, The

A stark story of Rain, the daughter of the Queen of an all-woman tribe, who questions her destiny to be a warrior queen. Beautiful, spare prose tells of the distance between Rain and her mother, who has never shown her love. (Rain was conceived as a result of gang rape by more than fifty warriors.) The women of the tribe secure the tribe’s continued existence by capturing men in battle, drugging them and killing all male children who result from this mating. Rain is not sure she wants to be Queen but when the time comes she succeeds but in her own way, choosing to be a different sort of queen, seeking peace and stability for her tribe. Hoffman’s notes lead the reader to think the story is loosely based on the Amazon women of the Black Sea Region.

This is a book which should make the girls who read it think, not of day-to-day problems, but of the wider meaning of life and of their place in the world. Small black and white illustrations decorate the text, utterly in keeping with the mood the story creates. For 12 years and upwards. JFi