“Hunter and his friends play the ultimate prank on the school bully. They hide in a dumpster to avoid his wrath but can’t get out. After yelling for help for quite some time, someone finally comes to their aid. This “janitor” promises not to tell the school principal where he found the boys if they’ll do him a favor. He hands Hunter a card with the address of a book shop and asks him to pick up an item and bring it back to the boys’ bathroom. Feeling as if they have no choice, the boys complete the errand. But when they return to the bathroom with a fancy, old book and a key, the janitor is nowhere to be found.
Hunter takes the things home and discovers that the book is magical. Before he can truly figure out what the book is for, he and his friend are whisked away to Solandria, a realm that is at war with the Shadow. There Hunter discovers that he must complete Codebearer training if he is to help defeat this Shadow and get home again.
With dragons, trolls, giant birds and lizards, and weapons similar to light sabers, this book was truly fun for all ages. I thought the premise and allegory was very powerful. Hunter is a delightful and sarcastic character. The minor characters were also fun. This was the strength of the book, in my opinion. There were some unnecessary backflashes that jerked me out of the story at times and some writing craft issues that teens probably won’t notice. There were also many punctuation issues. I was surprised to see such mistakes in a book from Warner Press.
I read it to my seven-year-old son, and he loved it, especially the illustrations. The Miller brothers seem to be quite talented as artists and animators, and now story tellers. ”
