AUG. 20, 2015
‘Shadows of
Sherwood:
A Robyn Hoodlum
Adventure,’
by Kekla Magoon
Kekla Magoon
Modernizing legends can be a tricky business. One must find the resonance between ancient and contemporary, blending incongruous elements in a way that seems not only right but inevitable: telling the story of a founding father with hip-hop lyrics, as in “Hamilton,” or presenting the myth of Theseus in the milieu of reality television as in “The Hunger Games.” Kekla Magoon manages a similar feat of legerdemain in “Shadows of Sherwood,” her compelling reboot of the Robin Hood myth.
In an alternate present, in the city-state of Nott City, 12-year-old Robyn Loxley is an accomplished gymnast and an amateur tinkerer in electronics. One night, while she sneaks out to raid the local salvage yard for parts, Governor Ignomus Crown stages a brutal coup d’état, rounding up and “disappearing” all members of Parliament and their families. Robyn alone escapes the purge. Hunted by the military police, unsure of her parents’ fate, she is forced to flee to the nearby district of Sherwood with its hardscrabble neighborhoods, tent cities and forests. So begins her transformation into Robyn Hoodlum.
The narrative will keep young readers turning pages with its breathlessly short chapters, ample derring-do and engaging central mystery about Robyn’s destiny as it relates to an ancient prophecy called the moon lore. Along the way, we are treated to car chases, buried treasure, secret hide-outs, and brazen acts of thievery for all the right reasons.
You don’t have to be familiar with Robin Hood’s Merry Men to enjoy the supporting cast, but Magoon delightfully reimagines the identities of Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet and Maid Marian. The young minister Tucker lives in the abandoned Nottingham Cathedral, where he writes history treatises and offers sanctuary to fugitives. He is also not above knocking out the occasional policeman. “Some days it’s easier to preach than to practice,” he tells Robyn dryly. The spiky-haired teenage rebel Scarlet serves as Robyn’s cyber-hacker when she is not borrowing Robyn’s equipment without permission. Kindhearted Merryan, Governor Crown’s niece, volunteers to help at Sherwood Clinic and becomes Robyn’s most unlikely, most potentially dangerous ally. “Anyone can decide to be different from their family,” Merryan insists. Robyn must determine whether she can trust that assertion.
Like the original Robin Hood, Robyn Loxley straddles disparate worlds. A child of privilege, she rises to become a champion of the poor. As the biracial daughter of one of Parliament’s few dark-skinned members, Robyn experiences the insidious connection between race and power. In one chilling scene, Robyn recalls meeting Ignomus Crown, the soon-to-be dictator, at a government function. When she asks Crown how he knows her father, Crown answers: “He stands out in a room like this, don’t you think?” Robyn, defiant, thinks to herself that her father would stand out in any room for his intelligence, popularity and charisma. “But she knew enough to know Crown didn’t mean those things. He was referring to Dad’s dark skin.” Robyn’s racial identity becomes an elegant expression of one of the book’s central themes — that darkness and light, while perceived as antagonists, are in fact symbiotic partners.
Most appealingly, our protagonist takes on the persona of Robyn Hoodlum not because she wants fame for her exploits, but because she wants to spare the people of Sherwood from being punished for her actions. This is not Errol Flynn’s swaggering celebrity outlaw, but rather a dispossessed girl who improbably becomes the face of a popular resistance movement.
When people begin seeing her as the fulfillment of the moon lore, Robyn is incredulous that an ancient prophecy could apply to her. The local wise woman Eveline explains that Robyn is not the first child of the prophecy, nor will she be the last. “The verses have come true before, and they will come true again. . . . The moon lore does not seek to predict, but to explain. . . . Our world turns in circles.”
Literature also turns in circles. Certain archetypes and legends speak more powerfully to certain generations. The main issue Magoon explores in “Shadows of Sherwood” — that law and justice are not always the same thing — is as timely for 21st-century America as it was for Merry Olde England. Robin Hood is an appropriate hero for our time, and Robyn Hoodlum is a welcome iteration of the legend.
SHADOWS OF SHERWOOD
A Robyn Hoodlum Adventure
By Kekla Magoon
355 pp. Bloomsbury. $16.99.
(Middle grade; ages 8 to 12)