Description: Eleven-year-old Roddy has nothing but hard work in the ropeworks to look forward to for the next five years, but when he meets a displaced king and his three daughters, things start looking up for Roddy. King Ivars has come to the new world looking for unusual things. "The land of ten thousand charms," he calls it. And strange things are certainly happening in the small town where they're living. The Parliament of Crows gathers to choose their new king, and Roddy is somehow able to understand this. King Ivars, sensing that Roddy is more special than he seems, takes him into his own home. When one of the princesses catches the eye of a royal monster, a curse is laid on the old king. Either she marries him, or her father dies. Roddy will have to use all his wits to rescue the beautiful princess from the evil monster.
Review: This book could have been really good...but it wasn't. It reads like a bad fairy tale, with wooden characters and a strange but simplistic plot. Parts of this book were interesting, but none of those parts were explored at all. For example, Roddy is obviously a magical being of some sort, since he can understand crows. There's also a sort of symbolic crowning within the book. However, it's never explained who Roddy is or why he can do such magical things. "Ten Thousand Charms" might be worth the read for fairy tale fans, but only when there's nothing better around.