The Ancient One

The Adventures of Kate #2

by T.A. Barron

They stood untouched for thousands of years, hidden within a fog-filled hollow. Now Kate, visiting Oregon, has discovered the grove of giant redwoods in Lost Crater. And their existence has become a source of bitter conflict—between those who believe the trees are the dying mill town’s last hope, and those who wish to keep the area a protected sanctuary.

Caught up in the struggle, Kate follows an old Halami Indian trail into the crater—and finds herself thrown five hundred years into the past. There, she encounters strange and enigmatic creatures—none more frightening than the volcanic Gashra, bent on destroying everything he cannot control. To defeat him, Kate must find the answer to an ancient riddle—and the courage to make the most difficult choice of her life…

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Adventure, Time Travel, Childrens, Middle Grade

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 16, 1992

About the author

T.A. Barron grew up in Colorado ranch country and traveled widely as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the winner of the de Grummond Medallion for “lifetime contribution to the field of children’s and young adult literature” and many other awards. T. A. Barron is the author of more than 30 highly acclaimed books, many of which are international bestsellers. They include The Lost Years of Merlin (now being developed into a feature film), The Great Tree of Avalon (a New York Times bestselling series), The Ancient One (the tale of a brave girl and a magical tree), and The Hero’s Trail (nonfiction stories of courageous kids).

Though he’d dreamed as a young man of becoming a writer, he couldn’t find anyone to publish his first novel. He joined a successful business, eventually became president, then decided to try again. So in 1990, he surprised his business partners by moving back to Colorado to become a writer and conservationist.

In 2000, he founded a national award to honor outstanding young people who help their communities or the environment: the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which honors 25 highly diverse, public-spirited kids each year. He recently produced a documentary film, Dream Big, profiling seven winners of the Barron Prize. When not writing or speaking, T. A. Barron serves on many boards including Princeton University, where he helped to create the Princeton Environmental Institute, and The Wilderness Society, which recently honored him with its highest award for conservation work. His favorite pastime is hiking, camping, or skiing in Colorado with his family.

Reviews

[Tabitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this book several times. I tend to wait until I have forgotten the end or at least parts of the middle before reading it again. Since I've probably read it 4 times now (over a 15 year span), it probably merits more stars. That being said, its probably close to 3.25 stars in terms of writing and creativity for an adult. However, the twist with the Native American culture and the time travel adventure make the book quite enjoyable. Further, its written for young adults and I think I read it for the first time in sixth grade. That makes the evaluation scale skewed. For an adult, keep in mind it was written for middle schoolers and enjoy it. For young adults, the story and message are quite good.

I recommend this to the eco-friendly fantasy lover as a good quick read. Fantasy purists may find the beginning slow and the overall book heavy on ecological concerns.

[Jeni C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was one of my favorite books in middle school. I took it with me to college, and I really enjoy revisiting it. The plot is engaging, magical, and it makes you think about the life you lead.

[_sniper.force_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been not wanting to read this book. (I haven't even read the first book, but I didn't know that.) I'm actually quite surprised about how good it turned out. The story went by pretty past, but there were some moment where I wanted to slap Kate with her own book.

[Stuart Phoenix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, I've not read this book for a very long time. I believe I read it when I was in second or third grade, after my sister told me it was good. It made such a lasting impression on us both that for years we tried to find it again. I'm nearly 30 now and I still think about how much I enjoyed it way back when. I think it says a lot about a book if it can stick with someone for most of their lives like that. Got a young reader in the house? Give them this and feed their mind holes, it'll be with it.

[X · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read this book for probably ten years, and I am happy I finally did! Fortunately, it is a stand alone book as I don't remember much about the first book in the trilogy. It's a good story of magic, time travel and lost cultures with a prominent - but not obnoxiously so - environmental message.

[Kelsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5 stars. Review to come.

[Riella Cristobal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection by T. A. Barron has been sitting on my shelf for a few years now. I flew through the first book in the series, but never finished the second. I knew if I ever really started it, I would be able to easily read it. However, I just never really got into it. I would read a chapter and put it to the side. So for the prompt “A book you never finished”, I chose to finally take this book off the TBR pile, and finish it!
The Ancient One follows Kate who is visiting her aunt in Oregon, a beautiful forest. It is home to a grove of redwood trees that have been untouched for thousands of years. However, the appearance of a threat to the forest from loggers brings Kate to a time completely unlike her own. Five hundred years in the past, she befriends a Halmi girl, one of the ancient natives of the land, and discovers another threat to the same beautiful land. Kate must come to the aid of the wilderness and its protectors, strange and magical creatures. They are seeking a magic long lost, for which the only clue is a riddle. As she journeys to defeat the evil and return to her own time, Kate is joined by creatures from her time and the past.
This is a super engrossing book! With the sci-fi/fantasy elements, it really feels like a classic tale! I like the focus on nature and the Native American background. I have not had the chance to read too many with those concepts. I thought that the magic was really cool, with some connected to nature and some to music. The creatures were also very interesting. I loved Kate’s journey. She felt very real, in her growth. She had been on an adventure before, yet she was still learning of herself and others.
I am so glad that I finally finished this! It was really good. I would definitely recommend it. It is a childrens’ fantasy novel and suitable for young readers. It does have an older style of writing, less casual. It might be difficult to start if the reader is not used to it.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serendipitously, I found this book among the scarce stacks of our school's library; remembering my immense, lasting fondness for Barron's The Lost Years of Merlin series, I thought it would be permissible to add a Y.A. novel to my current reading list. In trying to analyze this book, it might be good to break it down into two categories: youth Talbot and teacher Talbot — imagining what I would have wanted as a child/preteen and stating what is good for young readers, in turn, as a teacher. The two obviously relate quite a bit, and are certainly not mutually-exclusive of one another.

Youth: Foreign landscape leading into the fey, time travel, magic, disconcerting beings, fog, moving islands, enchanted artifacts, long-lost peoples, gift-giving helpers, ancient evils, equally-ancient goods, large trees, healthy doses of adventure, elements of friendships, mystery.

Teacher: A strong focus on environmentalism, believable and relate-able characters who grow in admirable ways through time, redemption and forgiveness, determination, grief and loss and that which is born in their crucible, journeying and home-coming, and everything else mentioned above, which I still love.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this gem at a used bookstore because I liked the cover art. Once I started reading I was hooked. An imaginative and richly detailed story about time travel that focused on friendship rather than romance, and featured several quirky lovable characters. In 3 words: unexpected and enjoyable

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book as a kid, and enjoyed reading it again as an adult.

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two words: WORLD. BUILDING.

This was a great book!

I thought the book was spectacular. The descriptions about nature and Kate's surroundings are so poetic and lyrical. Through T.A. Barron's writing, it really highlights his essential message about nature..there's just something about his writing style that makes it tangible and fluid.

Although, one thing I would like to comment on are the depth of the characters. Personally, Gashra, The Chief, and Kandeldandel were my favourite characters. They all had profound characterisations, and one might even consider - hamartia. They were all sarcastic, hilarious, and incredibly interesting. Throughout the book I noticed that I wasn't exactly motivated for Kate and her as the main character should suggest otherwise. I thought her perspective was tedious and kinda dull; there wasn't really anything going for her that I could root for. Sure, she won, but I wish Kate was just a little more interesting. Albeit she was occupied by the journey to home, but that doesn't exempt you from loosing some personality. Even Gashra was more interesting! I saw him as a big baby, contributing a comical sense between him and Kate's dialogue.

Ultimately, to make this book 5/5, I would need more interesting characters and perhaps more that a enigmatic plot - which was very well crafted!! The book is mostly carried by it's plot which was enough for me to rate it a 4/5 stars.

A very good read🫶!!

[Zooheather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic read for all ages.

I first read this in grade school or junior high and loved it then. Kate is a strong, female protagonist and a great person for a young girl to read about. I appreciated that even with the strong environmental themes, Barron still recognized the challenge of people needing jobs and valuing the individuals who do cut down trees by making some of the loggers more human rather than completely evil (like one).

After just rereading Heartlight, however, Kate's development seems so different, and there is absolutely no mention of how she got from the younger girl she was in the first book, to the softball playing, well-settled girl in this book. I thought that was something that felt a little lacking the second time around. Also, there was no mention as to why Kate was able to take all the time travel stuff in - presumably because of her previous experience with her Grandfather. I remember wishing for some of that as a kid too.

Aside from these two small things, the characters by in large are very dimensional, the story is a strong one, and the fantasy keeps the inner kid in me alive!

[Melanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written but it suffers a bit from being a little dated, formulaic, and simplistic.

I'm a tree hugger, but Barron's brushing off of the townsfolk's economic concerns just rubbed me the wrong way. "Well, it's your own fault that you don't have any trees to cut down anymore" might be completely true, but it's not really a productive thing to say when you're trying to persuade people.

"This would only delay the inevitable for about a year" is a little more productive - there's more substance to it - but really, unemployment delays the inevitable too, and everyone is fine with providing that...

It really is a complicated issue, and as horrible as cutting down trees that old is, I really don't agree with Barron's one-sided treatment. Though, I guess I shouldn't be looking at a young adult/middle grade novel for good consideration on a very adult problem.

If I'd read this in middle school, I probably would have liked it quite a bit more.

[Kaila · Rating 1 out of 5]

I remember reading this for a book report when I was maybe in the 5th grade. I thought I would revisit it, because I remember liking it. Wowzers, how the times change.

It's a heroine, so that's cool. But she's a white heroine, here to save the natives. She actually ended up helping out the owl people more than the natives, but it was still weird and "The white girl will save us all" tropey.

The writing is...how can I put this. Inane? Immature? Terms such as "Suddenly" or "At that moment" are used ad nauseum and started to drive me crazy. There was one time where "At that moment" was used only two paragraphs apart, with a "Suddenly" and a "Then" in the middle. It was hard to read.

There were too many plot lines and characters and it felt like they had just been mixed together to see where they would fall.

[Roybot · Rating 4 out of 5]

A teen and her great aunt try to save an untouched forest from destruction at the hands of loggers desperate for work in a weak economy. Also, she travels through time, meets a bunch of supernatural creatures, and fights a demon dinosaur.

The Ancient One is exactly the kind book I devoured when I was in elementary/middle school. The magical elements remind me of The Neverending Story a little, and I liked Kate's pluck and courage. The moral is hammered home perhaps a little bit too heavy-handedly at times, but, overall, this was an engaging tale of magic and nature. Since there's very little to mark the book as having come from a specific time period, it's aged surprisingly well for a YA/Children's book.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't resist those books set in Oregon. A teenager has to move in with her Grandma in a little logging town. There, she is caught up in the debate over logging the last remaining forest--but people think it is in a crater lake-like natural fortress which no one has been able to get into. The loggers are determined to blast a way in and the grandma is determined to stop them.
Meanwhile, the teenager is transported back in time to when the native people's of the area lived in the crater. Events in the future affect the past and the reverse is true, too, in this neat little book that doesn't get too annoying with the new age-y enviromental message.

[Althea Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked this up because of the rave review on the back from Madeleine L'Engle. I'm not surprised they solicited her for a blurb, as it's a quite similar story to her "An Acceptable Time" - young girl and a problematic young man travel back in time to meet a Native American tribe. This book however, takes a more typical quest-story format, has more fantastic elements, and has a more blatant (but well-done) environmentalist message. (The main plot element has to do with saving a lost stand of ancient redwoods from the short-sightedness of a poor Oregon logging town.)
It's not marketed as a YA novel, but I would definitely categorize it as such.

[Ronna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I cried at the end of it.

The emotion that this book managed to evoke was brilliant. I hadn't read the first one in the series, hadn't even heard of it, but I picked this one up because I enjoyed the other books this author writes.' It is one of those books that makes a home in your heart and never leaves.

[James Hogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may be the wrong audience for this. If I was 11 or 12, it’s very possible I would have loved this fantastical adventure. As it is, I was left a bit cold. After recently reading Richard Powers’ “Overstory”, I wanted to read another tree book and found this one recommended. It certainly does have strong tree-themes, but it’s a bit more YA than I was anticipating! Lots of Native lore and environmentalist themes which in and of themselves is not a bad thing, but the story itself felt a bit on the nose and also boring at times? I struggled to want to pick it up to read and forced myself to finish. I will say the last quarter or so did finally engage my attention! Not a bad book, but again – maybe it’s my fault for being the wrong age when reading this!

[Whitney · Rating 2 out of 5]

As much as I like T.A Barron-and I do-this just wasn't for me. All of the elements were there to make a really neat story, but for some reason, it just did not come together. There's also the possibility that the rave review from Madeline L'Engle just set my expectations a little too high.

That said, there were cool parts in the book. The pond with the green worms was neat, and tiny bits such as the one with the hot chocolate or the rocks talking showed some of the spark present in the Merlin books. The whole description of the hidden forest was nicely done as well.

[Mkatherinejohnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like to rate something by T.A. Baron so low, but this book, being plot-driven rather than character-driven, was not to my taste. The characters were simple and flat, but likable. The plot was simple but not entirely predictable. There was plenty of rich setting description which sometimes grew dry. In spite of those things, the ideas and the sense of hope which the book left me with are still lingering in my mind.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ancient One is my favorite book from The Adventures of Kate series. The author has created a fantastic universe that honestly left me wanting more. The cultures and creatures are unique, however, some minor characters seem a little shallow. That's not to say that they're a distraction, I just wish they'd been more fully fleshed out. I would love to see Kate revisit this world and I really hope the author expands some on this particular universe.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite book when I was a kid. I read it so many times my copy is falling apart. I used to dream of going to the magical world inside the crater. On Easter Island there is a crater that is lush and green inside with water at the bottom. For some reason it made me think of this book and I was like hmm I wonder if I can find the secret entrance 🤣

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

After moving to the PNW 7 years ago, I kept remembering pieces of a beloved YA novel about redwood trees and green shoelaces and time-travel, yet it took me until 35 (and some precious googling) to figure out it was the same author as my beloved Merlin series! I'll have to re-read it, but from what I remember, this book was a standout when I was about 11-12.

[Susannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a childhood favorite that I just reread with my 7yo - I docked a star for what I now realize was a white savior plot, which I think most people didn't appreciate in the 90s. An exciting story with a good conservation message, my daughter enjoyed it and it resulted in good discussion with her.

[Eadrinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many of the other reviewers, I read this in middle school. It remains one of my favorite books. It has a message I feel that we all need to hear and in a sea of fantasy novels, the story still stands out to me. This is one to read.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was one of my favorites as a kid and it's still a great story. It's a young adult book that I think most adults should read. Plus, it's a bonus that I'm from the Pacific Northwest and the story is based in Oregon. This is one of those books that can transport you to another place in time.

[Mara M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book from my youth that got me into reading fantasy. Part of my 4.5 stars rating is nostalgia, but I do think it deserves it in its own right as well. Simple enough for someone 10-12 to read, but robust enough an adult could find joy in reading it.

[Dan Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite book. However I do realize this a young adult book from the 90s. I have a feeling I would have enjoyed it more when I was growing up. The ending left me with a few unanswered questions. Oh well maybe ya fantasy is not my cup of tea.

[Tidwell Longbottom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wasn't quiteeeee as good as my middle school mind remembered it being, but it may be because this is book 2 of something I didn't know was a series. Still I enjoyed the world and my brief stay in it. Glad to revisit, probably wouldn't revisit again.