1975 children's fantasy, first of a loose series but it stands alone.
After the last king died, Dalemark was effectively divided between its
Earls, and the South is more oppressive than the North, but that
doesn't matter to Moril and his family of travelling musicians. Well,
it shouldn't.
Wilkins' Tooth was (to some extent at the insistence of its
publisher) very much in the contemporaneous mould of children's
fantasy. This one felt to me on rereading as though it owed rather
more to Rosemary Sutcliff's style, particularly as seen in Brother
Dusty-Feet (in the earlier parts of this book) and Simon later,
when things are happening which nobody would wish a child to be
involved with, but they'll be involved anyway.
Even before things fall apart, there are clearly tensions in the
family, but because Moril has grown up with them he hasn't noticed; as
an outsider, the reader can spot the clues, and can speculate about
just what may have gone on in these people's pasts (especially since
this is a world with magic). When traumatic events happen, Moril is
surprised that he doesn't feel worse; we might draw conclusions about
that too. The other children are in the same situation, and they each
have their distinctive personalities and reactions to things.
And thinking of some other books I've read recently, almost nobody
here is easy to classify as "good" or "bad". There's one outright
villain, which I suppose is forgivable if regrettable, but everyone
else has complexity to them; most of them are trying to do what they
see as the right thing, but it's not at all obvious at times what that
might be.
And the other reason I was thinking of Sutcliffe is the moral
complexity. Towards the end, Moril does a thing. Everyone agrees that
it was the right thing, and indeed the necessary thing. But he knows
in his heart that he did it for the wrong reasons. And that is
something I value in any work of fiction.