Brangwain Spurge - the journey from what!!?? to "I see!"

Please, do NOT name your next child Brangwain - unless you and your offspring are elves.  Even then, the name may not be fortuitous.  It was not lucky for Brangwain Spurge.

In an attempt to broker a lasting friendly peace between elves and goblins, the archivist Brangwain Spurge is catapulted into goblin territory, carrying a priceless jewel.  His host is the goblin historian, Werfel, the Archivist. Werfel's delight to be chosen as Spurge's guide to all things goblin knows no bounds.  He takes great pains to amuse and please his disapproving guest while they wait to approach the mighty Ghohg, Friend of the People.

You can find these details on the publisher's page or Goodreads.  The title,- The Assassination of Brangwain Splurge, the author, - M.T. Anderson, the illustrator, - Eugene Yelchin - and his detailed, black and white, drawings are enough to have readers of YA fantasy buzzing.

I don't fall into the demographic most publishers shoot for when producing books for teens and young adults.  Teens tend to be people approximately 12 through 15-ish.  YA? anywhere from 14 to 22, depending on the publisher. When I fell into those age ranges, phones hung on walls or sat on desks and some of my friends shared their phone lines with their neighbors.  So...

My first reaction to the wordless opening pages was, "Meh." Even when the story began - I think of stories being made up of words -  I scratched my head and sighed.  A snobby superior elf and an overeager lumpish goblin - hasn't this been done before? Was all the fuss merely a reaction to the partnership of stellar prose with excellent artwork?  Was this just a novelty effort to attract readers?

Brangwain's duplicitous contact back in the Elf Kingdom did not surprise or interest me.  BUT, this is M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, so I read on.

The drawings made sense to me. After all, goblins are horrible creatures with strange and awful habits.  EXCEPT, Werfel was so very, very nice.  Brangwain is a supercilious prat. As he levitates and sends brain pictures of all he sees back to Ysoret Clivers, his elvish contact, his host tries again and again to please him.

Brangwain's actual mission, unknown to him, is one of the oldest plots known to man.  When it fails and the elves that show up on the border have no intention of rescuing Brangwain, the two scholars, goblin and elf, find themselves on the run.

That got my attention.  Once on the lam, the pictures sent back, even now, to the elves, change in tone and detail.  Spurge's attitude gradually softens, while Werfel becomes less and less eager to please. 

The conclusion is cataclysmic! Unexpected! Fitting!

So, now I see what the fuss was all about - not the novelty of the graphics - not the setting of the fantasy.  If you want to see what I see in this book, read it.  It's on your library's shelves right now.