Fiction Friday (141)

 

I'm the kind of person that always has a fairly extensive list of books that I want to read, some of which linger there for years and others that find ways to leapfrog themselves to the top. After having avoided Middle Grade for the better part of a year, I was swept up again with Hollowpox and since a new Nevermoor book is a ways away, I decided to move into a series that I felt I'd been neglecting...a mistake that has now been corrected.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

(Aladdin , 2012)

Sophie is not like the other kids in school, and not simply because she's 12 years old and a senior in High School. She's always known she's different, but until one fateful field trip that leads to a strange encounter, Sophie has no idea just how different she truly is. And so begins the epic tale that has already spanned nine bestselling novels about a group of friends who inhabit a world that exists within our reach but beyond our understanding.

I had been unaware of this Middle Grade series until rather recently and finally found time to dive in. Though certainly in the Harry Potter realm (a school for talented magical kids, a hidden secret enemy, and a main character of destiny) it doesn't really feel the same, though the same fans are certainly reading it. The key to any great middle grade fantasy is that the characters, while having adventures one could only dream of, still suffer with the same dilemma's that readers can identify with. 

There's a clear reason why these books have been so popular for the last decade and I enjoyed every single one of the 450+ pages of this story...so much so, that I'm moving on to the second book on the same day I finished the first.