The Whisper Of Glocken by Carol Kendall

Hear the whisper, whisper, whisper,

That lost and far off whisper,

And remember, member, member,

The whisper of Glocken’s bell…

In this sequel to The Gammage Cup, The Whisper Of Glocken by Carol Kendall, returns us to the Land Between the Mountains where the small ones, known as the Minnipins, live.  The Watercress River is flooding and has already destroyed two villages.  To prevent the entire valley from flooding, five new reluctant heroes set out to discover the cause of the flooding and unblock the river if they can.

Our new brave Minnipins, hail from the village of Water Gap; Gam Lutie, the wise, village elder who is too concerned with her family treasure; Silky, a somewhat whiney, yet caring lass; Glocken, the town bell ringer and dreamer; Scumble, the fish presser and Crustabread, the wandering loner.  When they are taken in by the citizens of Slipper-On-The-Water, they are mistakenly tasked by the old heroes from The Gammage Cup to discover what is blocking the river.

This time the five new heroes must venture out of the valley, and there they discover new friends, a harsh desert and new threats that are much more formidable than the Mushrooms, who the Minnipins faced in The Gammage Cup.  I have to say, I liked this one a lot more.  I like that these new heroes had to step out of the comfort of their valley.  Their strength and wits are tested right away when they lose some of their supplies.  Water quickly becomes scarce and they must fight to survive as they encounter the harsh elements and some desert creatures that are not all that nice.  They have their moments when they become frustrated with each other, but they still look out for each other and do not give up.  And their adventures in the desert do not end there when they come upon the Hulks, giant-like men, who promise to help the Minnipins but who are not all that trustworthy.

In this book I liked Crustabread who reminded me a lot of Mingy from The Gammage Cup.  Crustabread keeps to himself and rarely speaks.  But when he does, he chooses his words carefully and makes a whole lot of sense and is very wise and strong, despite what others may have thought of him, having always kept to himself in their small village.  He’s the one who always kept a cool head, made decisions quickly and watched out for the others.  Think of him as the Daryl Dixon of the Minnipin world.

Except Crustabread didn't have a cool crossbow

But each character has their moment to shine and you grow to care for all of them, even if they start out annoying, like Glocken did.  Oh lord, did that boy test my patience at first.  When he finally met his heroes face to face, after all his dreaming and building them up to be perfect and without fault in his mind, he was very disappointed and really rude.  But eventually he changed and grew on me.

This time I only had one minor issue regarding the collateral damage near the end.  I won’t get into it, it will give too much of the story away and I would like others to experience it themselves.  It’s a very well written story, it kept me on the edge of my seat and I was pretty happy with the way the story was wrapped up.  At the beginning of each chapter are cute poems and maxims and there are some nice illustrations peppered throughout, which adds to the character of the book.  If you get the chance to read it I think you'll enjoy it.