The Raven’s Eye Runaways
by Claire Mabey

The cover of The Raven’s Eye Runaways features an enchanting scene of a wilderness, a village, and two runaway kids – and a raven – on a quest. This feisty, spellbinding middle-grade adventure is Claire Mabey’s debut novel: she is better known as the founder of festivals Verb Wellington and LitCrawl Wellington, and as the books editor at The Spinoff.

The Raven’s Eye Runaways is set in a magical, medieval world, with its own complex rules and factions of society. Reading is strictly prohibited, except among an elite few: ‘nobody was to read books without permission, and permission was particularly difficult to get unless you were a Scholar, and the only way to be a Scholar was to be born one.’

Gunnora Goode is the owner of Raven’s Eye, ‘the most sought-after Bookbinder in Greater Wyle’. Her daughter (and assistant) Getwin wears an eye-patch over her foggy right eye, has a fish-hook-shaped scar that runs down her chin, wild red hair, and a one-eyed raven called Sharp, who ‘wasn’t quite a pet, more a part of the Bindery, like a living extension of the building itself.’ Irritable, passionate Getwin describes her life as ‘all pages and leather and ink.’

The well-respected Raven’s Eye Bookbindery serves the most powerful Stationers, having earned their trust through masterful workmanship and unparalleled efficiency. But Getwin and Gunnora have a secret. Since Getwin was young, ‘letters had formed patterns and words had danced into brilliant sense. And Gunnora had encouraged it, so that by the light of many a deep-night fire, they’d read the books that flooded into the Bindery, and had steadily, and dangerously, defied the highest law of their employer.’

Like reading, the craft of writing is tightly restricted. Scribes are tasked with transcribing stories and knowledge into books with quills and ink. But those selected to be Scribes are imprisoned in ‘doorless cells’ within a building ‘held in by a monstrously tall and thick stone wall.’ There, they are drugged with ‘Specialtea’ that fogs their memories and their minds and put to work in the Scriptorium, their sore-covered hands growing red and raw. The Scribes’ work is scrutinised and they are forced take part in religious rituals and recitations.

‘A Scribe is a Vessel. A Scribe is the hand of Prime,’ recited the Keeper, reading from the paper in her hands. ‘It is a sin for a Scribe to waste ink. Her actions must be clean and gracious in order for Prime to enter in.’

Then, because ‘nothing of use remained once the Scribe’s hands were ruined, and the mind frayed and the Strangeness syphoned out’, Scribes are disappeared to the mysterious ‘Prime House’, never to be heard from again.

When naïve, goodhearted Lea, a Scribe who has ‘eyes wide like she’s just been born’, finds that her pot of tea does not get delivered for several days, ‘Her thirst subsided and was replaced by a steady sort of clarity that settled somewhere in her head like a leaf floating down into a pool of sunlight on the floor of a vast forest.’ Not only does she find her memory is returning, but that she can read the words she is tasked with writing.

It never used to happen like this. Before, when she was full of tea, her mind stayed still when she wrote. The words were shapes: simply ink, simply curls, simply lines. Now they looked back at her.

With her new-found knowledge and memories, Lea escapes outside-the-wall. Meanwhile, at the Raven’s Eye, an unexpected visitor arrives from Harrowden Hall, home of one of the most illustrious families of Scholars. Getwin begins to realise that her mother has other secrets. Gunnora hints at imminent danger but tells Getwin she is better off not knowing. For Getwin, ‘It seemed like a universe had fallen into the Bindery and exploded the space between them.’

Soon after, Gunnora is called away to Harrowden Hall on urgent business, and Getwin and her friend Buckle are left to unravel the blossoming mysteries. ‘Neither of them spoke while the new information swirled between them, the private histories of parents falling over them like old coats tumbling out of a wardrobe.’ Magic begins to appear in the most unlikely of places. Strangers with special abilities, magical trees, and powerful books that make Getwin feel ‘Warm, and floaty, like entering into a dream.’ Soon Lea and Getwin’s stories converge, and together they embark on a dramatic rescue mission.

The Raven’s Eye Runaways is the first in a planned trilogy, with a gripping story but a lot left at stake. With this prospect, along with a raft of excellent New Zealand middle-grade books hitting the shelves in recent months (including Brave Kāhu and the Pōrangi Magpie, The Grimmelings, and Brown Bird, among others), it’s an exciting time for young readers.

Mabey’s world is evoked with rich, immersive imagery and prose that is delightfully of its world. Fans of Anna Jones’ Pages & Co series will enjoy getting lost in the bookish setting. Heavy lessons hide within the pages of this female-led tale: a battle against an authoritarian regime, a reliance on the natural world to save them, and a dystopian warning of where controlling books and reading might lead. Some elements are reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale, with reading and writing forbidden, ideological indoctrination used to oppress and control, and an Aunt Lydia-like character at the helm of the Scriptorium. But more than anything, this is an adventure story, perfect for young readers who love books about books, and being transported into a realm of fantasy and magic.