Legacy of the Claw

September 1, 2014
A new but very familiar-feeling middle-grade fantasy series kicks off. Twelve-year-old Bailey Walker has been accepted to Aldermere's prestigious Fairmount Academy, two days' "rigimotive" travel from where he's been raised by his adoptive parents. Bailey is excited to be going because he wants to meet Tremelo Loren-a teacher at the academy who he had read has a reputation for strengthening the all-important bond between people and their animal kin, known as Animas. Bailey has not yet awakened to his Animas, a fact that makes him feel out of the norm and self-conscious. Meanwhile, Viviana-the long-lost daughter of the murdered King Melore of Aldermere, who has turned evil after having been enslaved-is plotting to overthrow the government by perverting the normally nurturing Animas bond. Borrowing heavily from concepts in both Harry Potter and the His Dark Materials trilogy, with some arbitrary steampunk-y details, this novel is an uneasy patchwork whose central Animas theme never comes close to achieving the believability or significance it needs to. The clunky, adverb-filled writing features an overabundance of telling rather than showing, and characters are both one-dimensional and inconsistent. Plot developments are so easily anticipated that most readers will have figured it all out well before the final chapters. A derivative mishmash that just doesn't work. (Fantasy. 10-12)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2014

Gr 4-6-Twelve-year-old Bailey has been accepted to the prestigious Fairmont Academy in Aldermere where he hopes that he will finally find his animas, a unique bond with an animal that almost everyone has by the time they are his age. The Dark Woods that surround the school seem menacing, but Bailey senses mysterious happenings occurring there and that something or someone is watching him. He and some new friends begin to venture out at night, which leads to some scary and wondrous adventures as well as the threat of expulsion by the school administration. The story has elements reminiscent of the "Harry Potter" series, including a unique school game called Scavage, teachers who are not always what they seem, and encroaching dark forces. This novel about a murdered king, his ambitious and unscrupulous daughter who seeks to overturn the animas bond and make the animals subservient to the humans, her missing brother, and a legendary "child of war" is a fun page-turner with interesting characters and unexpected plot twists. Readers will be propelled toward the next volumes in this entertaining new series.-Carol Schene, formerly at Taunton Public Schools, MA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.