The Silver Anklet

April 1, 2010
Gr 5-7-In the second volume in a trilogy set in present-day India, vicious hyenas capture Tara's brother and two other children while they are at a fair. Blaming herself for not paying closer attention to her younger sibling, Tara is determined to rescue the children, and, with some friends, she rashly sets off into the forest. After they find the body of one child, Tara realizes that the youngsters have been captured by Zarku, the villain and her nemesis from "The Third Eye" (Boardwalk, 2007), whom she thought she had killed. Frantically, the group heads to a temple, where they are captured by a very much alive Zarku, who is inhabiting the body of her brother. He challenges them to a deadly game of hide-and-seek that they must win to secure the children's freedom. Though her friends escape, Tara does not, and she is forced to carry an almost-dead child to a distant cave before rescuing her brother and possibly killing Zarku for the second time. The tale is a nonstop adventure, full of complaints and whining on the part of almost all the characters. Unfortunately, little context is provided, and unless one has read the first volume, it isn't clear who Zarku is and how Tara became involved in this ongoing battle with him. Loose ends abound in this bloody tale, and its grounding in the real world is weak."Barbara Scotto, Children's Literature New England, Brookline, MA"

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