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The Red King
The Red King controls his forest kingdom not just by force of arms, but by spreading disease. All who question his authority are infected with the deadly red fever. Who would dare oppose such a man? Only a tiny band of entertainers-- a magician, an acrobat, a monkey, and a bear.
Hardcover
First published January 14, 1989
5 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Victor Kelleher
68 books71 followersVictor Kelleher is an Australian author. Victor was born in London and moved to Africa with his parents, at the age of fifteen. He spent the next twenty years travelling and studying in Africa, before moving to New Zealand. Kelleher received a teaching degree in Africa and has taught in Africa, New Zealand and Australia. While in New Zealand, he began writing part time, prompted by homesickness for Africa. He moved to Australia in 1976, with his South African wife, Allison, and taught at the University of New England, in Armidale, New South Wales, before moving to Sydney to write full time. Many of the books he has written have been based on his childhood and his travellings in Africa.
Kelleher has won many awards for his books, such as the Australian Children's Book Award.
Kelleher has won many awards for his books, such as the Australian Children's Book Award.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
December 2, 2011
I read this book in high school because I felt sorry for it. It had sat on the library shelves for several years, and I was hoping to find a hidden gem. Unfortunately, this book was the worst book that I had EVER read (still is).
February 15, 2018
Wonderfully creepy and dark.
The copy I picked up in an op shop has a great, creepy cover, which is what attracted me to it, along with Kelleher's name. Some of these other editions have very obvious covers. The blurry, weird and scary mask lit by flame on my copy is a better depiction of the contents, whilst leaving much more to the imagination.
This book is subtle in many ways, and leaves much to ponder on the nature of morals and relationships. I particularly found the ending thought provoking, especially the reference to the sky trees and grass seen through different perspectives: the perspective of isolation and that of belonging. Such an interesting concept that I hadn't thought of before, and I found, to my surprise that it resonated with me.
The copy I picked up in an op shop has a great, creepy cover, which is what attracted me to it, along with Kelleher's name. Some of these other editions have very obvious covers. The blurry, weird and scary mask lit by flame on my copy is a better depiction of the contents, whilst leaving much more to the imagination.
This book is subtle in many ways, and leaves much to ponder on the nature of morals and relationships. I particularly found the ending thought provoking, especially the reference to the sky trees and grass seen through different perspectives: the perspective of isolation and that of belonging. Such an interesting concept that I hadn't thought of before, and I found, to my surprise that it resonated with me.
June 22, 2009
Loved it when I was small, although I only really remember the parts where they were attempting to escape and had to brave a number of horrors. Definitely a lot of tense, gripping moments for young readers, and it makes a trilling, inspiring adventure with a lovely message of hope at the conclusion.
March 5, 2015
Well. Thank goodness that's over. The only reason I read this is because my friend Adam wanted me to. I wouldn't have picked it up otherwise and I never will again. Such a tedious journey for a completely forgettable destination. I'm sure the only thing I'll remember of this book in two months is Kelleher's ridiculous overuse of the phrase "withered breasts".
January 27, 2023
In a world ruled by terror of the tyrant's quasi-magical poisons, our protagonist allies with a traveling entertainer who is determined to overthrow the tyrant. Or maybe just steal from him. Or something - can she trust her ally?
I liked the character dynamic, but I feel the author didn't really take it anywhere well. What's more, the setting seemed half-baked - it wasn't sparkly enough to stand on its own, and it wasn't justified well enough. After finishing the book, I still don't feel I understand how this world works.
I liked the character dynamic, but I feel the author didn't really take it anywhere well. What's more, the setting seemed half-baked - it wasn't sparkly enough to stand on its own, and it wasn't justified well enough. After finishing the book, I still don't feel I understand how this world works.
July 2, 2019
Gripping, I couldn't put it down.
December 7, 2020
Still a cracker
January 27, 2021
-I- want to be an acrobat in a traveling circus!
March 15, 2021
The book I loved as a child turned out to be all about taking advantage of young girls. Whoops! It was also totally dark and had a giant crayfish monster so not a total loss.
January 11, 2023
First I was intrigued, then puzzled, then unnerved followed by disappointed and stunned…
August 7, 2024
I read this book when I was a child and it stayed with me.
Not sure what I'd think of it now, if I were to read it as an adult. But I've thought about it many times over the years.
Not sure what I'd think of it now, if I were to read it as an adult. But I've thought about it many times over the years.
November 25, 2025
La libertad son los amigos que hacemos por el camino, supongo. Solo que los amigos te maltratan, te mienten y están fatal de lo suyo.
¿Cómo es esto un libro para mayores de 8 años?
¿Cómo es esto un libro para mayores de 8 años?
July 30, 2022
1992 - I really liked it.
2003 - I remember reading this when I was a kid and knowing it was something about an acrobat girl and enjoying it. On this reread, I found it to be quite a complicated story, and I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not.
Basically, there is this figure called the Red King, who dwells inside the mountain, and demands the rest of the world pay him tax, and if they don't he poisons them with red air which makes them catch a horrible disease and usually die or else be disfigured. There is also slavery.
Timkin is an acrobat who was bought by Master, who is now an old man, when she was a little girl. She was one of the children who are removed from a village and sold into slavery before the Red King's henchmen kill all the adults. She is Master's favourite and he loves her and he promises to free them all when he dies; one night he loses the strength in his arms when flinging her from the trapeze and she almost falls, and he promises to free her then, but then they get stuck in a village which is given the Red King's retribution and they get sick. Master dies but Timkin is nursed back to health by a mysterious man called Petie, who travels with a bear, Bruno, and a monkey, Crystal. The monkey had stolen a ripe pod from a special tree, which healed her, and once recovered she can't catch it again. When Petie saw Timkin he decided she was perfect for his plan to steal the Red King's gold and kill the Red King, ridding the world of him. He knows all about the Red King's history (though whether everyone knew this but Timkin because she is an ignorant child I'm not sure; we get the impression it is something Petie found out for his purpose).
Once the Red King was a wise hermit who lived by a healing spring he shared with people who came but when he started aging he was afraid of dying so he left the spring and went to the mountain where he stepped inside a white flame that burned away aging, but also all his higher emotions. He considered himself king and wore a gold mask and red robes and took over the world. Where before he healed, now he spread disease. He blocked off the spring and a tree grew over it whose pods can heal the plague he spreads, but it is guarded by a creature who was either once man or bear and healed badly from the disease, and eating only the pods has become mostly tree in grotesque appearance (47-8, 56).
They get in by performing for the king, fight one monster that lives in the water and eats people, then get captured by a naked old witch who poisons people, transforming them, then eats them when they die, even though poisoned flesh. They escape from there and find the Red King, push him into the flame - he had been in there so many times that there was little flesh left on him and this final time kills him. Petie got poisoned so is dying but Timkin carries him outside, and the two unripe pods she stole with Bruno's help have ripened by the white flame and save Petie; she carries him back to the wagon and nurses him to health, only to discover his pockets were full of gold, weighing him down.
She won't forgive him for nearly killing them with this extra weight, but life without him is boring so forgives him in the end. I think the moral is we have to not idealise people (as she did her first Master too who could after all have freed them any time) and must love them good and bad. Petie is a funny character, described as neither young nor old, and with lightning mood changes, from kind to cruel and all the rest.
Some of the creatures lost their humanity and attack them after freed (p.120 lion-headed, "snake-like, bear-like, barely human forms") but one man that is shrivelled, kind of monkey-like, helps them. Timkin has a very kind heart and even sees the old woman as transformed from someone who was once human and kind. How are we to understand Petie's pleas with the woman and with the red king for mercy and healing, just part of his plan or really how he felt at that time? He is a difficult character to comprehend. Timkin, with her kindness, is much easier to like and to understand. I was left to wonder why everyone else who survived had face scars (even Petie, healed the same way), compared with Timkin.
2003 - I remember reading this when I was a kid and knowing it was something about an acrobat girl and enjoying it. On this reread, I found it to be quite a complicated story, and I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not.
Basically, there is this figure called the Red King, who dwells inside the mountain, and demands the rest of the world pay him tax, and if they don't he poisons them with red air which makes them catch a horrible disease and usually die or else be disfigured. There is also slavery.
Timkin is an acrobat who was bought by Master, who is now an old man, when she was a little girl. She was one of the children who are removed from a village and sold into slavery before the Red King's henchmen kill all the adults. She is Master's favourite and he loves her and he promises to free them all when he dies; one night he loses the strength in his arms when flinging her from the trapeze and she almost falls, and he promises to free her then, but then they get stuck in a village which is given the Red King's retribution and they get sick. Master dies but Timkin is nursed back to health by a mysterious man called Petie, who travels with a bear, Bruno, and a monkey, Crystal. The monkey had stolen a ripe pod from a special tree, which healed her, and once recovered she can't catch it again. When Petie saw Timkin he decided she was perfect for his plan to steal the Red King's gold and kill the Red King, ridding the world of him. He knows all about the Red King's history (though whether everyone knew this but Timkin because she is an ignorant child I'm not sure; we get the impression it is something Petie found out for his purpose).
Once the Red King was a wise hermit who lived by a healing spring he shared with people who came but when he started aging he was afraid of dying so he left the spring and went to the mountain where he stepped inside a white flame that burned away aging, but also all his higher emotions. He considered himself king and wore a gold mask and red robes and took over the world. Where before he healed, now he spread disease. He blocked off the spring and a tree grew over it whose pods can heal the plague he spreads, but it is guarded by a creature who was either once man or bear and healed badly from the disease, and eating only the pods has become mostly tree in grotesque appearance (47-8, 56).
They get in by performing for the king, fight one monster that lives in the water and eats people, then get captured by a naked old witch who poisons people, transforming them, then eats them when they die, even though poisoned flesh. They escape from there and find the Red King, push him into the flame - he had been in there so many times that there was little flesh left on him and this final time kills him. Petie got poisoned so is dying but Timkin carries him outside, and the two unripe pods she stole with Bruno's help have ripened by the white flame and save Petie; she carries him back to the wagon and nurses him to health, only to discover his pockets were full of gold, weighing him down.
She won't forgive him for nearly killing them with this extra weight, but life without him is boring so forgives him in the end. I think the moral is we have to not idealise people (as she did her first Master too who could after all have freed them any time) and must love them good and bad. Petie is a funny character, described as neither young nor old, and with lightning mood changes, from kind to cruel and all the rest.
Some of the creatures lost their humanity and attack them after freed (p.120 lion-headed, "snake-like, bear-like, barely human forms") but one man that is shrivelled, kind of monkey-like, helps them. Timkin has a very kind heart and even sees the old woman as transformed from someone who was once human and kind. How are we to understand Petie's pleas with the woman and with the red king for mercy and healing, just part of his plan or really how he felt at that time? He is a difficult character to comprehend. Timkin, with her kindness, is much easier to like and to understand. I was left to wonder why everyone else who survived had face scars (even Petie, healed the same way), compared with Timkin.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 10, 2017
I wasnt really the biggest fan of this book at all because of the practicality of it. For me, it was just to bizarre it randomized to be a read I could full concentrate on. Monkeys, bears and plague weaponizing? It lost me there. I started of intrigued and then they killed off who I thought was the most developed character, in the second chapter! Not my favourite read by far
March 31, 2019
Any more, fantasy novels are expected to be enormous epic-length ordeals -- look at the works of Tolkien, Martin, Goodkind, Rothfuss, and others. I have nothing against a long book, but too often authors feel that for their fantasy to be compelling it has to be massive, and often that leads to packing books with loads and loads of unnecessary detail. "The Red King" hearkens back to the days of Lloyd Alexander's "Prydian Chronicles" and Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising," and proves that you can tell a compelling fantasy story with interesting characters without writing a phone book's worth of pages.
"The Red King" takes place in a forest kingdom where the titular Red King rules with an iron fist, using a terrible plague to punish and kill those who would defy him. Timkin, an acrobat who has been a slave since she was a little girl, has been promised her freedom by her current master... but when her troupe is cornered by the Red King's soldiers, she alone survives the awful plague. Now a trickster and thief named Petie has declared himself her master, and strikes a deal with her -- her freedom in exchange for helping him defeat the terrible Red King and rob his treasure stores. With the help of Petie's animal companions, the bear Bruno and the monkey Crystal, can Timkin find the courage and strength to destroy a tyrant and save a kingdom?
While the book's relatively short length does mean a lack of worldbuilding, the elements of worldbuilding we do get are compelling and interesting. The idea of a villain weaponizing a plague to maintain his control was fascinating, and said villain was actually given a compelling backstory in the bargain. The setting is your typical European medieval setting common in a lot of fantasy, but with enough added elements to make it interesting. And the story is thrilling... even if I agree with another reviewer in that
The characters of Timkin and Petrie are surprisingly complex for such a short read as well. They're well-rounded, with believable flaws and strengths, and Petrie's abrupt mood swings make him unpredictable but also a more complex character than one normally gets in these sorts of books. He's a bit of an anti-hero and scoundrel as well, which may startle people hoping for a more noble and virtuous character but actually made him interesting. And Timkin is a resourceful girl who is desperate to see the good in Petrie but is still intent on not taking crap from him, which helps keep her from being a wet blanket of a protagonist.
A short but entertaining fantasy, this is a good read for fans of Lloyd Alexander, and manages to tell a compelling story in under two hundred pages. Given that "A Song of Ice and Fire" books can run over a thousand pages long, this is no mean feat...
"The Red King" takes place in a forest kingdom where the titular Red King rules with an iron fist, using a terrible plague to punish and kill those who would defy him. Timkin, an acrobat who has been a slave since she was a little girl, has been promised her freedom by her current master... but when her troupe is cornered by the Red King's soldiers, she alone survives the awful plague. Now a trickster and thief named Petie has declared himself her master, and strikes a deal with her -- her freedom in exchange for helping him defeat the terrible Red King and rob his treasure stores. With the help of Petie's animal companions, the bear Bruno and the monkey Crystal, can Timkin find the courage and strength to destroy a tyrant and save a kingdom?
While the book's relatively short length does mean a lack of worldbuilding, the elements of worldbuilding we do get are compelling and interesting. The idea of a villain weaponizing a plague to maintain his control was fascinating, and said villain was actually given a compelling backstory in the bargain. The setting is your typical European medieval setting common in a lot of fantasy, but with enough added elements to make it interesting. And the story is thrilling... even if I agree with another reviewer in that
The characters of Timkin and Petrie are surprisingly complex for such a short read as well. They're well-rounded, with believable flaws and strengths, and Petrie's abrupt mood swings make him unpredictable but also a more complex character than one normally gets in these sorts of books. He's a bit of an anti-hero and scoundrel as well, which may startle people hoping for a more noble and virtuous character but actually made him interesting. And Timkin is a resourceful girl who is desperate to see the good in Petrie but is still intent on not taking crap from him, which helps keep her from being a wet blanket of a protagonist.
A short but entertaining fantasy, this is a good read for fans of Lloyd Alexander, and manages to tell a compelling story in under two hundred pages. Given that "A Song of Ice and Fire" books can run over a thousand pages long, this is no mean feat...
December 25, 2019
I enjoyed that the author challenged the reader and the imagination but I found the resolution lacking.
October 23, 2025
Re-read this the other day and it's still an entertaining story - though toward the end, Kelleher rides some tedious 'crone' tropes that have aged poorly and probably should have been dealt with back when first published in the early 1990s.
While the setting is not as detailed as a novel pitched at adults, there's an effective, dark fairy tale feel to the book that really works.
Above that, the characters were memorable, though for the most part, it's the manipulative Petie and wise-beyond-her-years Timkin that stand out. Being forced to work together sets up a clash of values as they go up against the Red King and his plague.
I probably enjoyed this more as a kid, but it was still fun to come back to now as an adult.
While the setting is not as detailed as a novel pitched at adults, there's an effective, dark fairy tale feel to the book that really works.
Above that, the characters were memorable, though for the most part, it's the manipulative Petie and wise-beyond-her-years Timkin that stand out. Being forced to work together sets up a clash of values as they go up against the Red King and his plague.
I probably enjoyed this more as a kid, but it was still fun to come back to now as an adult.
October 31, 2007
it's a very exciting book, and it's also very funny. its about a girl who's been a slave all her life, and before her master died he promissed her, her freedom, but before she could be free she was once again captured by the kings guards and put back to the slave markets, where a guy called petie bought her. he was a very strange guy he could change his attitude before you know it, he also had two pets a bear called bruno and a monkey called crystal. and together they planned to steal all the kings gold.
April 29, 2009
Read in grade 6... did not like it, though I loved Del-Del by the same author. I always think I should give it another go one day.
February 7, 2009
One of the better ones I thought. A childhood classic!
December 30, 2011
one of my fav. books as a child.
November 19, 2019
An interesting fantasy book, written in the style of Lloyd Alexander for younger readers. Memorable characters and a very good plot.
Want to read
March 4, 2015Listed as Q3 = A good story with some faults, P3 = A booktalk on this title will excite most people’s interest
Read
July 25, 2014(Read during High School)
April 21, 2017
If I was a young teenager in 1989, I would probably enjoy this book. But I'm not. And so I didn't.
It was standard fantasy fare, nothing remarkable. I would rate it slightly higher, except for the ending where she basically stays in an abusive relationship because she's lonely.
It was standard fantasy fare, nothing remarkable. I would rate it slightly higher, except for the ending where she basically stays in an abusive relationship because she's lonely.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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October 10, 2017File under "rather odd children's books of the 80s"
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews