by Jenny
and Tony Smedley
Published
by O Books
Price:
£7.99
reviewed by Joanna van der Hoeven
This tale
is full of adventure from start to finish.
A young girl with a powerful imagination crosses over into another
world, and there finds friends and fear, love and pain, bravery and independence. The powers of love and
imagination are essential to the plot, and may have a lot to teach both young
and adult readers alike.
The story
gives a perspective from both a child’s and a parent’s point of view regarding
their relationship. Both views are quite eloquently written. The joining of the two discourses at the
novel’s end is quite moving. One passage
that particularly stands out is with regard to imagination, when the father
must believe in the otherworld in order to help save his daughter:
“John closed his eyes and brought his imagination into
play. Minutes passed as he tried to
recall his childhood. He remembered how
he used to believe in angels and magic. He remembered when he used to think
that wishes came true. He remembered
when he used to think that miracles could happen, and he then with dawning
wonder he felt in his hand the breath of a big animal, huffing on his
skin. He moved his hand and felt the
velvet muzzle of a Unicorn. He opened
his eyes, and saw… he saw… everything, more clearly than he had for years (p.130)”
The only point that I would like to raise would be the age
of the readership. For an advanced young
adult reader the vocabulary and some of the ideas would be perfectly
acceptable, however, the child’s part of the story may sometimes be too
juvenile. Likewise, the adult’s part of
the story may not be comprehended by less mature readers, however, that may
very well be what the authors intended.
The ending is deliciously left open for a sequel, to which
I’m quite certain many readers will very much be looking forward to.
Available from Amazon.co.uk
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