A mother that disappeared without a trace, a sudden tragic death and then being forcibly uprooted from your home. That is what Zach, a thirteen year old boy endures when a ghostly girl kills his father. Being strong willed, Zach is determined not to leave his home in New Orleans until supernatural events occur that convince him to move in with his great aunt who lives on the grounds of a haunted plantation. It is there that Zach encounters a Cajun boy that never grows old and a creature that changes his life forever. Parallel worlds of wicked reptiles, animals, ghouls, angels and zombies form a supernatural mix that thrust Zach in the forefront of a battle between good and evil.
Pic and description taken from Goodreads.com
My Review
*I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is a unique
and fantastical middle reader story. The
book begins tragically with Zach’s father dying on his 13th birthday,
when a strange girl pushes him in to the path of a trolley and then disappears. Immediately strange things start to happen to
Zach, like seeing ghosts and hearing voices telling him he needs to go and live
with his strange aunt out in the country.
Zach is sure that life in the Louisiana countryside is going to be so
boring but he soon finds out how wrong he is.
One day Zach goes
in search of hidden pirate treasure in the swamp and finds Kikaju instead. He is a nutria, not a rat like everyone seems
to think, and the prince of a hidden world.
An evil crocodile has stolen a magic stone from Kikaju’s father and
imprisoned him. Now it is up to Kikaju
to find a way to get it back and fix all the horrible things that the crocodile
has done to the land. With the help of
Zach and a whole cast of crazy characters Kikaju sets out to save his
world. During his adventure you meet
some ghosts, a whole slew of talking animals and one crazy, scary cat lady, just
to name a few of the strange people in
the story. Throw in a lot of magic and
some good old voodoo and you have a great story that kids will love.
While the book is
fun for kids I do have to say that I was not as draw in to the book as an adult
as I have been with other children's stories.
There are a lot of times that the story seems to jump around a bit too
much and I kept wishing for a little more depth to the story. I just kept feeling that if the author had
taken the time to add just a little more detail to things such as the
characters stories or to explain more about the world that Kekaju came from it
would have made the story so much better.
I also had a hard time with the language in the book. I am assuming that it is supposed to
represent a sort of Cajun/Bayou type dialect but since I have never been to Louisiana
I can only guess that this is really how they talk there. I just made some of the dialog hard to follow
for this Westerner. All that being said,
most kids don't care about this sort of stuff and since that is who the book
was written for, all that matters is that it is an excellent children's book.
Parents guide: If you have
sensitive children you may want to preview the book first. The crocodile in the book chomps people in
half and has their tongues ripped out, etc., and while it is not greatly descriptive
it may still be a little intense for some kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment