Reposting the review of The Sword of Six Worlds because the the kindle edition is on sale for $2.99
Summary: A girl discovers she is the protector (Paladin) of Earth and other worlds need her to save them.
Hello, my name is Adam and I like to read children’s and young adult literature. (Hi Adam).
Lots of adults read children’s books. I saw one number that suggested nearly 80% of children’s and young adult books were purchased by adults. (Of course it is the adults that have most of the money, so this is not incredibly surprising.)
Most adults that I know that like reading kids books have told me that they read because they still love the classic kids books that they read as children.
The Chronicles of Narnia are probably the most frequently cited books that sparked a desire for kids to become readers. (Followed and maybe now surpassed by Harry Potter).
For me I think it was the hero story that really moved me as a child. Whether it was fantasy or biography (which I read a ton of as a child), the hero is the one that does the hard work to put others before themselves. I thought about this the other day when I was reading a blog post about allowing boys to play fight (and I would suggest girls need this as well.) Play fighting is one of the places where you learn that you can hurt others, where you learn to restrain yourself but not mentioned in the blog post and I think very important, it is where you get to pretend you are the hero that saves everyone.
The Sword of Six World is a great book for actual kids and their adults to read about being a hero. As with most hero stories, there is the mix of fear, reluctance, desire for glory and fun and the eventual need to put others before yourself.
This is a Narnia-like story. There are talking animals, living rock, dimensional travel and evil. Validus (it is Latin and she knows it is an odd name) discovers that their evil substitute teacher is trying to kill her and her best friend Alex. Two new students help save them and they are swept into another world, where the two new students are actually a Tiger and a Horse.
The evil, Blight, is slowly taking over different worlds. The evil is similar to the darkness in the Wrinkle in Time and it starts by turning people against those whom they love. Val and Alex (he discovers he can talk to rocks) have to stop the blight from taking over the Citadel.
The author, Matt Mikalatos, is not new to writing. I have reviewed his two previous books, Imaginary Jesus and Night of the Living Dead Christian. This is a very different book. Those were oriented toward adults, and used fictionalized versions of himself to tell pretty straight Christian teaching.
The Sword of Six Worlds is a children’s book that is about good and evil, but never mentions Christianity. This is writing from a Christian world view without invoking the name of Christ as CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien are famous for doing. This really felt like a very good modern version of a classic children’s book.
The Sword of Six Worlds is the first book in a series and the next book is coming out sometime in the future.
The Sword of Six Worlds by Matt Mikalatos Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition
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I received a digital copy of the book from the author for purposes of review.
Related Bookwi.se Book Reviews
- Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of CS Lewis (bookwi.se)
- The Magician’s Nephew by CS Lewis
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
- Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos
- The Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos
