Ranger's Apprentice and The Burning Bridge John Flanagan

The Ranger's Apprentice is a fun book but not quite a challenging read. (I guess that could be a good or bad thing.) I thought this was a pretty cool book, however it was not one of my favorites. This is a fictional book that takes place in medieval times. This is the second in the series of ten.

In the first book Will was chosen to be the apprentice to the ranger Halt. In the last book Will defeated Morgarath's two assassins. The book ended with war being declared between Will's country, Araluen, and the outcast Morgarath.Morgarath was banished to the mountains of rain and night several years ago and since then has been creating an army of Warlags: Bear-like creatures with low intelligence but an uncanny ability to fight.

Now preparing for the war Will has accepted a small, simple quest. His job, along side another ranger and a warrior named Horace, is to deliver a message to the land of Celtica, the city next to Will's home Redmont. The task should be completed easily, however when the threesome arrive in the city of Celtica they are astonished to find the city abandoned. Now it's up to Will to find the cause why the city was abandoned and possibly give his country the upper-hand in the war. It will take a lot of dangerous spying, fighting and skill to possibly save his life and possibly save his country.

This book brings up several good points, however I think the main message to take away from this book is trust and forgiveness. Several times in this book Will has to trust his companion Horace the warrior. First, Will had to forgive Horace for the wrong he had done earlier that year, then he had to continually trust Horace with his life. Just like Will forgives and forgets what Horace had done to upset him, can learn to better forgive and be a better friend.

This was a good, well written book and all in all I enjoyed it. At the beginning of the book it starts out slow, like most books, but as I got into it, the book really intrigued me and I wanted to keep reading. This was definitely an improvement from the last book. I liked this book and I will definitely read the next book. This book deserves a A-