Are you reading Torrie and the Snake-Prince for Silver Birch?
If so, here's a little game you might like to try.

About Rookfeather and Anna

~ A History Hunt ~

See how good an historical detective you can be in Torrie's quests!

Although each of Torrie's quests is a whole new adventure and it doesn't matter what order you read them in, there are little connections between the stories. There's actually one very important connection between Rookfeather (in Torrie and the Snake-Prince) and Captain Anna (in Torrie and the Pirate-Queen and Torrie and the Firebird). Torrie tells you what this connection is, if you listen closely (or read the books carefully) and put the clues together. But before you begin, you need to know when the different stories are happening.

Torrie tells you that Snake-Prince happened, "Long before I ever went dragon-hunting or sailed the South Seas ..." It's actually about 315 years before Pirate-Queen. See page 1 of Snake-Prince.

Pirate-Queen and Firebird take place "in the days of Queen Dendroica the First, granddaughter of my friends, the great dragon-killers Rufik and Cossypha." (Pirate-Queen, p. 1.) That won't help you a lot until the next Torrie book comes out (which will be about Rufik and Cossypha), unless you've read an old and hard-to-find book which is also about them, so I'll just tell you that Pirate-Queen begins about 65 years after Torrie went dragon-hunting, and he went dragon-hunting about 250 years after the adventure in Snake-Prince.

That's all the math! Now you know that the two stories, about Wren and about Anna and Kokako, are happening around 315 years apart and that Wren is the earlier one, so Anna hasn't even been born yet (and won't be for a very long time) when Wren goes on her quest to find Prince Liasis.

Now, on to the clues that are scattered through the stories in Firebird and Snake-Prince. All you have to do is put them together, and in fact, it's not that tricky, because Torrie is too in love with telling stories to keep a secret. (And nobody asked him to keep it secret, of course.) He actually gives everything away, if you know where to look.

Here's where to look for the clues ...

In Torrie and the Snake-Prince you find out a lot about Rookfeather (and other important people).

pp. 10 & 11

pp. 35 & 36

pp. 38 & 39

p. 119

p. 157

pp. 172-175

pp. 178-179

And in Torrie and the Firebird you can learn things about Anna that surprised even her.

pp. 52-54

pp. 98 & 100

pp. 107-108

p. 130

pp. 157-158

The last two give it all away. Look at all your research notes (a good historical detective always makes research notes), and see if you can figure it out first without looking at these, especially the very last page.

Okay, now you can look. Firebird, page 188 and especially page 193. I warned you that Torrie actually gave everything away.

Now, for a real challenge, what is the name that Rookfeather used when she visited the Great Southern Continent sometime between the adventures in Snake-Prince and Firebird? Just pay attention while you're reading Firebird!