Book Blog Tour: Tally and the Angel by Eleanor Dixon

 

As a midgrade (very) bookish child, I was fascinated by books set in faraway lands. Thanks to some of those books I decided, later as an adult to spend as much time as possible on the road, discovering other cultures, languages and people from different - sometimes very far away - lands. 

While reading Tally and the Angel by Eleanor Dixon I was took back to those times, when I immersed in worlds that looked mostly the product of literary imaginations than real places on the physical map. Nevertheless, I insisted to dream that one day I will visit them for sure. Sooner than later.

It happens that I have been in India before, the place where most of the action in the book one from the series is happening. However, in comparison with Tally, the brave young girl who is the main character in the book, I was not lucky enough to be supported by a real angel to get into serious investigations. 

Trying to recover after the tragical death of her mother, Tally is moving to India with his father. With the help of Angel Jophiel - according to Kabbalah, the guardian of wisdom - she is about to discover where the kidnapped kids of India are gone. 

Dixon is skilfully integrating elements of personal loss and suffering into a general - political and social narrative - through the eyes and actions of a young teenage girl. I was pleased by the natural, drama-free approach of loss, but also about the role of exposure to different cultures and approaches as part of an individual healing process. Growing up and stepping into adulthood means also acknowledging the power of good and evil and how those values may happen often to be inter-changeable. 

In Tally and the Angel those - sometimes bitter - life lessons are not offered as a lecture, but part of the individual development of the characters and the general book action. I was particurly pleased also by the local descriptions set in India and I am looking forward to the next installments in the series. 

The chapters are short, concise enough for the limited attention span of the nowadays teenagers, and the discrete visual snapshots are an attractive adornment for the readers´ eyes. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered part of a book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own.