The Battle for Guiniloupay

After wandering the land for years, Buc’s tribe of guinea pigs finds a place that is perfect for settling down, the city of Guiniloupay. Unfortunately, it is very close to the Mouse Empire, which at the time they did not know about. When Buc, the leader, dies, his son, Prince, becomes the leader in his stead, and a group of penguins joins their town and King Penjay, a penguin, becomes their king. When the Mouse Empire strikes against the city of Guiniloupay, the armies of Guiniloupay are not ready so the citizens are subjected to slavery. During their years of slavery, the penguins and guinea pigs have heard whispers of rebellion. No one knows exactly how or when or what is going to start it, but it is striking fear into the mice and giving the citizens of Guiniloupay hope.

This was a good book, but very, very sad. It talked about killing people for no reason and it was very bloody, and it talked about a lot of tragedies. It wasn’t really trying to give a moral or anything, but it was trying to remind us of all the sad things that have happened or could happen if people continue trying to grab all the power. One empire wanted to have control over the whole land and was greedy, so it almost got wiped out.

The book is set up in an interesting way; there are only six chapters, but they are each very long. The main character of the book is really the city of Guiniloupay itself, so the first two chapters are about the guinea pigs founding the city; the next two are about the penguins coming in and then the war with the mice; and the last two are about the city being enslaved and the rebellion. In each chapter, you get to meet other characters who are important to the city in that time, like Buc, the founder; and King Penjay, the penguin king; and the mouse king, King Bandit. You really got to know the characters; my favorite character was probably Sleightide, a friend of King Penjay. He is serious but sensible, smart and doesn’t lose his cool. The nice thing about King Penjay is that, unlike the mouse king, he pays attention to his subjects, both penguins and guinea pigs, and doesn’t ruthlessly kill them whenever they do something wrong. The guinea pigs just wanted to save their home. The penguins wanted to take back their own home. The mice were very greedy and had kicked the penguins out of their home and then took over the guinea pigs’ city too. So it might have been trying to say how different groups of people can work together peacefully, like the penguins and guinea pigs, but when people get too greedy then all these bad things happen, like wars and killing. The Battle for Guiniloupay is the first book of a series; it will be interesting to see what happens to the city next.