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Most of our community has complaints about Leafpool and Leafpool’s Wish in particular. I remember reading this novella before and having trouble sympathising with her character.
One thing like about reading these stories to write essays on them is that I gain a greater appreciation for the story and characters. The same can be said for this novella.
I started to realise that Leafpool’s wish to keep these kits did not appear until she was away from her clanmates and responsibilities. Any issues she had before stemmed from a wish to help her clan by remaining its medicine cat.
She felt torn between her motherly bond to her kits and her loyalty to her clan. She knew that she couldn’t leave them without a medicine cat, and, for now, she was the only one who could fulfil that role.
I hope that this summary essay can help you to see the good side of Leafpool’s Wish too.
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Here is the summary essay for the second novella in the Tales From The Clans collection, Leafpool’s Wish.
The main theme in Leafpool’s wish is a mother’s love. Mother’s bond with their children early. When Leafpool is pregnant with her kits, she is willing to fight a badger. When she sees a she-fox sleeping with her cubs she feels admiration and envy, as the fox shares her feelings of motherhood without responsibility. She feels heartbroken in admitting that Squirrelflight will raise the kits instead of her. She promises ‘[She] with always walk beside [them]…’(pg 182) and that ‘[They] will always be in [her] heart.’ (pg 189), as she allows the clan to accept them as Squirrelflight’s.
The main characters in the novella include the protagonist, Leafpool, whose world view takes the reader on the journey of the story. The main antagonist in Leafpool’s Wish is Leafpool’s kits. They first appear as three stars in a prophecy, that warns the protagonist of hard times ahead. Later, they are movements in Leafpool’s belly that impede her daily, and a rounded belly, which some of the clan notices, and is met with jibes and scepticism directed at Leafpool. After birth, the kits threaten her place in the clan and she has to give them up. All the other characters in the novella are minor or incidental.
The main situations in the story are listed here. Leafpool learns she is going to have kits. She asks StarClan for help, but they refuse. She tells her sister Squirrelflight and she promises to help. Yellowfang tells them Squirrelflight must raise the kits. Squirrelflight refuses. Leafpool and Squirrelflight leave the clan. StarClan begs Squirrelflight to raise the kits, and she agrees after a while. On the way back to the clan, Leafpool rubs her milk scent on Squirrelflight and disguises her own to convince the kits that Squirrelflight is their mother. Leafpool and Squirrelflight return to the clan.
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