Friday, April 7, 2017

An adventurous book for middle grade children: Eden's Escape

What happens when the world of the lamp genies meets the 2.0 universe, if the cause and effects are smartly pondered, the result can be a wonderful page turning book. 
Eden's Escape, the second from a series of book about Eden - 'a born genie in a magic lamp' that had 'started granting wishes at the age of 7', the genie who want to live in Earth, is hard to put down not only if you are a 8-12-year old, but for everyone looking to read good adventure stories. From Manhattan to the chic neighborhoods of Paris, accompanied by immortal characters like her guardian Pepper who lived long enough to have met Shakespeare, dealing with a greedy high-tech entrepreneur and making spontaneous friendship with a rebel teenage girl passionate about fashion blogging, Eden has a fool life on Earth, with new challenges and a lot of food for thought. At the end of the book, the young reader will enjoy not only the adrenaline driving story, but will remain with some good lessons about friendship, loyalty and getting to know your own's limits. 
I particularly loved about this book how does it use a classical fairy tale motif: the wish fulfilling lamp from the Oriental stories, in a very modern context without overcharging the story with too much common sense. The Internet, Facebook, smart phones and tablets appear in the story but not intrusively or obsessively. Eden needs the Internet to check about David Brightly and to communicate with Pepper and she knows how to set up a fake profile for not being detected by the filters David was using to track her online, but the e- world has only a small share of the story. Actually, they are better without it as they can freely move and communicate without being caught therefore the phones are kept off for almost the entire duration of the story. Although the old genie recognize the need to catch up with technologies, at least this episode offers smart and successful alternatives to the online dependence. Interestingly, almost all the characters of the book are women, successful, straightforward and many of them immortal too.
I haven't read the first book - but now I really want to as I am almost sure M. Tara Crowl is my newest favorite author - but it is not a problem to understand this very creative story.
A recommended read to anyone looking for a good adventure book and looking to offer their children an entertaining read this summer. 
I am personally looking forward to more books by this author.

Rating: 5 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

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