The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

Narrated by Sura Siu

7th thru 12th grade – Fantasy – Tween Fiction

Genre or category

Adventure

Fantasy

Asian Influence

Target Age Group

Ages 9 - 12

3rd – 6th grade

Lexile Level: 740 according to NoveList (EBSCOhost, 2022)

Summary

Growing up in what can be considered “the wrong side of town”, daughter of a con man and crafty in her own right, 12-year-old Sai will do just about anything to change her circumstances. Playing the part of an upper-class girl apprenticing under her city’s master mapmaker, Paiyoon, Sai jumps at the opportunity to join a prestigious expedition to find the mythical Sunderlands

Justification

This novel is cataloged and shelved as Tween Fiction in my local public library, it is not cataloged as “fantasy” however due to the system’s eradication of this particular classification (Tulsa City-County Library, n.d.). The author, Christina Soontornvat, is a well-known and well-rounded author for children and tweens and has been nominated for and awarded numerous book awards (soontonvat.com). The Last Mapmaker was selected as a Sequoyah 2024 Master List book (Oklahoma Library Association, n.d.) , and was nominated for the Newberry Medal, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Children's Literature, Audie Award Nominee for Middle Grade, and the Walter Dean Myers Award for Young Readers in 2023 (Goodreads, n.d.).

Evaluation

For this review, I will be evaluating character, plot, and theme.

There are several predominant characters within this novel who all provide various lessons and insights into this story. Sai wants a better life, respect, security, a home, and friendship. Bo wants a home, but he also wants to find his family. Rian wants recognition, accolades, fame, and fortune. These are just a few of the notable characters in the text; each one is driven by a need, and these needs influence their choices. Each of these characters is determined, smart, and cunning, we want to see them succeed because the author does a marvelous job of getting readers interested in the outcomes of her characters.

With the help of these characters, we follow them from Thailand-inspired Mangkon through port cities to the fabled southern continent, the Sunderlands. The crew of the ship that Sai finds herself on has been tasked by the Queen to travel to lands unknown, with the promise of riches upon the return. We want to see Sai succeed, and earn all of the things she dreams of. There are both internal and external obstacles that Sai must overcome during her trip for the conclusion of this novel to be satisfying.

Several times within the narrative, the phrase “The tail is the teeth” is expressed and is meant to signify that your history and past are important, but Sai understands it to also mean that you are born into what you will be, you can’t change your circumstances. All Sai wants is to get out of the Fens, she wants more than what is expected from the life she was born into. I believe that the theme of this story revolves around the internal battle Sai faces as she makes choices that she believes to be right while being manipulated by someone she calls a friend, and will help make her life more than it is.

I listened to this novel as an audiobook accessed through Libby as I had originally chosen and read another 7th thru 12th grade novel selection (see Literature for Youth in Public Libraries Spring Reading List) but I could not justify the selection of this novel, and I was running out of time. I enjoyed the narrative that Soontornvat created and gave this story 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, however, I did not enjoy the narrator. I have listened to several audiobooks, and usually won’t finish a novel if the narrator is less than appealing. I had to push through this one as it felt like I was listening to a TikTok video throughout most of the story. While the narrator of The Last Mapmaker did take away from the story for me, it was still a wonderful narrative.

 

References and other helpful resources

About. (n.d.). Soontornvat.com. Retrieved April 20, 2024, from https://soontornvat.com/about/

EBSCOhost. (2022). The last mapmaker. NoveList Plus. https://soontornvat.com/about/

Goodreads. (n.d.) The last mapmaker. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58308834-the-last-mapmaker

Oklahoma Library Association. Sequoyah past intermediate masterlists. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.oklibs.org/resource/resmgr/sequoyah/sequoyah_masterlists_interme.pdf

Soontornvat, C. (2022). The last mapmaker (S. Siu, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Spotify Audiobooks. https://libbyapp.com/search/tulsa/search/query-the%20last%20mapmaker/page-1/8880544

Tulsa City-County Library. (n.d.) The last mapmaker. Catalog. https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S63C6031346