What a nostalgia trip. I absolutely OBSESSED over the Deltora Quest books as a kid and very recently I was able to acquire all the original books in the series.

Every book in this series gets a full half star bump solely due to the absolutely phenomenal cover art by Marc McBride. I adore his style and how he makes any image he creates pop to life.

The story itself is your pretty standard kid fantasy. There's a big bad and a series of missing magic items needed to get rid of him. What really elevates Deltora Quest for me is the monsters and the world building. In the first book we have The Wenn, bipedal human-sized insects who can make loud chittering noises and whose stings completely paralyze their prey, The Wennbar, a four legged carnivorous dinosaur creature that can extend it's neck to reach prey and who the Wenn treat as a god, and Gorl, a former knight in golden armor who lost his honor when he killed his brothers in an attempt to greedily keep an immortal flower nectar all to himself.

I was also surprised at how much I enjoyed the main characters Lief, Barda, and Jasmine. Usually in kids adventure books they tend to make them very simplistic and one note, but Rodda does a fantastic job at making them feel well rounded and likeable.