Celia and Tyrus take another amazing adventure.  The first book was good but the author has found his groove on this second book.  J. Scott Savage is an artist with words.  With fantastic details and imagination, the author has a canny ability to sew words together and sculpt whimsical and mind-bending ideas into words which add to the delight of the story. Of the many lessons in this book, we are reminded that words can be wishes or weapons.

My favorite line is when Celia and Tyrus learn that impossible just means you haven’t figured out how to do it yet.  Hatta reminds us that serving others is the best way of saving ourselves.  Each of the characters has something to learn and their personal growth is impressive. 

This is book two in the series and with a summary of book one at the beginning, it can easily stand alone.  The story amazingly flies by with agility and speed.  The author is very good at hooking his reader and keeping the story fast paced.  Mr. Savage has written at least thirteen books so far and as amazing as this series is, I’d definitely take the time to look at the others.

Review of an Advance Reading Copy provided by the Publisher

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: None

Violence/Gore: The wars are fought with words that result in bumps and bruises; mention of a sword that could cut a head clean off and devour entire armies; very scary spiders who are quite mean with gross descriptions, (but oddly age appropriate); enslaved creatures who row the pirate ship, gross descriptions (but oddly age appropriate); dead rats that are disguised as food; a bird flies into a web, gets caught, a spider sinks its long fangs into it with a horrifying crunch; 2 pages describing a fighting scene between several animals, some die, some get eaten, some burned, mention of blood but no gory descriptions; the 4 main characters (the kids) plan to kill a mythical beast but decide not to; mythical beast lays dying, mention of blood.

Sex/Nudity: None

Mature Subject Matter:

None

Alcohol/Drug Use:

None