Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that there is some fantasy violence here with injuries, deaths, kidnapping, and references to a parent who is supposed to have committed suicide (he didn't).
Families who read this book could discuss magical neighborhood places. The author based the setting on a place in his own childhood neighborhood. Are there places in your neighborhood that seem mysterious, magical, strange? Have you ever imagined fantastic things taking place there? What makes a place seem magical?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Adult author Eoin McNamee pens an intermittently exciting variation on an archetypal fantasy theme for his first children's book -- ordinary boy finds out he's meant to save the world. Beyond that, the details are imaginative, but unclear. Reversing time for some reason makes all humans and their works disappear, except for those on the side of the Harsh, who have various unusual technologies that seem to come out of nowhere. The Harsh want to reverse time because ... well, they like the cold, or something.
Who the Harsh are, where the Resisters came from, how it all works -- none of this is really explained. This might be less noticeable if the characters were more compelling, but they're mostly flat and interchangeable. The ending is even more mystifying than the rest of the story. The action is fun at times, though it drags at others, and there are lots of hints that there might be more backstory than the author is letting on.
This is intended to be the first of a series, but it certainly doesn't leave the reader panting for more. It might appeal to fantasy fanatics who have run out of more compelling fare.
From The Book
"I bet there are ghosts," he said.
She'd leaned forward in the gloom of her small shop and met his gaze with eyes that seemed suddenly stern and blue in a wrinkled face.
"No ghosts," she had said, giving him a strange look. "No ghosts at the Workhouse. But there are other things. That place has been there longer than anyone thinks."
Plot Summary:
Owen likes to play near an abandoned Workhouse above his town, and he has a secret cave nearby. With his father gone and his mother deep in depression, he likes to hang out there. But one day he comes out of his cave to find the Workhouse swarming with people, but his house, indeed his entire town, has vanished.
Soon he finds out that evil beings called the Harsh have reversed time, that the Workhouse is an island in time, and that the people there, called Resisters, sleep through the centuries and awaken when needed to fight the Harsh. Owen himself has a part to play in defeating the Harsh and setting time back on its normal course. But he's not sure whom he can trust, and some of the Resisters don't trust him -- they believe that his father was a traitor, and Owen may be too.
Related Books:
More Kids Saving the World:
The Iron Giant by Ted Hughes
Switchers by Kate Thompson
Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
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Sexual Content |
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ViolenceSome fantasy violence: battles with injuries and death, a kidnapping with harsh treatment, a reference to suicide, a deer is deliberately run over. |
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Language |
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Message |
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Social BehaviorThe main character skips school. |
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CommercialismVideo game player brand mentioned. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDrinking and drunkenness. |
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