Four children create an imaginary world only to find that it has somehow become real and they are trapped inside it.
Quarter Finalist
Assessment:
Plot: Siblings Carrie, Tim, and Jessie take a risk and share their secret with their new friend Kevin— like the Brontë children, they have created an elaborate imaginary world, Shindaria, peopled with genii, talking animals, and every kind of magic. To their astonishment, Kevin unwittingly provides the key that turns the imaginary world into reality—a reality more thrilling, and also far more perilous, than they could have dreamed.
Prose/Style: From the very first paragraph, Alison Baird captivates her reader with humor, imagination, and magic. Beautifully imagined, and so gorgeously written that the most impossible fantasy landscapes rise clearly in the mind's eye of the reader, the most complex battle scenes are described in clear, lucid, and thrillingly exciting prose, and the compulsion to keep reading to find out what happens next is well-nigh irresistible.
Originality: At last, a writer has appeared to answer the prayers of those who wished that C.S. Lewis, Edward Eager, E. Nesbit and the other greats who plunked ordinary children in wildly fantastical magical adventures had just written a few more books. Baird must have dipped her pen in stardust, for the adventures of Kevin, Carrie, Tim, and Jessie will keep readers riveted from the first page to the last.
Character Development/Execution: Kevin, Carrie, Tim and Jessie are in the best tradition of children in magical adventures—they have an inborn nobility of character that carries them through every danger they meet, yet they are entirely human and terrifically likable. A great fantasy kingdom has arisen; if you are wise, you, too, will visit the land of Shindaria.
Date Submitted: August 26, 2021
