“Palaces of the Crow” by Ray Nayler
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Rating: 4/5 Stars.
A story of survival a war and the aftermath, when four children are driven into a forest in Lithuania to when Nazi Germany invades. Their survival is aided by a group of intelligent crows that warn them of danger and bring them gifts. But the biggest and most wonderful gift would be when the children get to see what the crows have done with their intelligence; and in return what the children can do for the crows.
The story starts with Neriya, a Jewish girl who becomes fascinated by a crow that likes to play and solve puzzles. This crow would then save the girl by leading her into the forest when war comes and engulfs her community. She is then joined by Czesław, an underage Polish boy in the Red Army who escapes into the forest when the Army is destroyed, and then by Kezia, a Roma girl, and an unnamed boy who does not speak. All of them have seen what the Nazis, and resistance members, do to those who try to hide or resist them. It would need all of Czesław’s hunting skills, Neriya’s education in biology and plants, and Kezia and the boy’s desire to learn new skills to keep them alive in the woods while war wages around them.
The crows would also help them, and is one puzzle that the children are eager to learn more about: their intelligence, and why they seem eager to help the children. The children would also discover scraps of writing that hint that they are not the first to discover the intelligence of the crows.
As the story progresses, the narrative also leaps into the future, after the war, when the children (now adults) meet again at the same forest to see what has happened to the crows. We also learn what happened to the children as the war starts to end, and the forest is no longer a safe hiding place for children. It is at this point that this reader began to notice discrepancies in the narrative, which are only resolved when a plot twist is revealed that would force this reader to reconsider the events that occur in the book. And it would show the resolve the grown children would have to protect what they know about the crows of the forest.
The story is light on SF, but gripping as it shows the children struggling to survive in the forest, and avoiding other groups of people that are also hiding in the forest, for whom any stranger is an enemy to be killed. But the worse may be those people who have gone feral and reverted to a state where survival is all-consuming. But the ending offers hope that, despite the horrors endured by the children, people can still recognise an extraordinary gift and seek to protect it.
Book read from 2026/06/20 to 2026/06/24.