Author: Wade Albert White
Illustrator: Mariano Epelbaum
© Date: 2016
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 371
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: Yes, but only on the first page of a chapter
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12 years
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No
Summary from Book:
There are two kinds of adventure:
- The kind that involves unicorns and lollipops
- The kind that involves escaping from a prison-like orphanage, falling off an exploding mountain, and getting fireballed by a dragon (or possibly eaten by a zombie shark).
This is a story about the second kind.
Anne has spend most of her thirteen years scrubbing dirty hallways and laboring in dark mines at Saint Lupin’s orphanage, dreaming of finding her true home and of becoming an adventurer alongside her best friend, Penelope. Her dreams finally seem within reach…until Anne is denied her rightful ticket out of Saint Lupin’s. Determined to leave the controlling Matron and her life of chores behind, Anne’s daring escape plan takes a surprising turn when a mysterious medallion fuses to her hand. Anne, Penelope, and their new questing partner, Hiro, have just days to solve unsolvable riddles and triumph over undefeatable foes—or face the horrible consequences.
Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this awhile ago.
Page Pig Thoughts: I loved this book, but I will admit that the ending left me a little confused. If the sequel doesn’t make the pieces come together, then my rating may go down a notch. I super appreciated the witty humor, and told lots of people about the Equine Council (a group of 5 horses overseeing a school, but they never got anything done because every time one would table a motion, one would say “neigh”). After reading chapters, I found myself frequently flipping back to the illustrations at the start of the chapter. Sometimes I would flip back just to see how something was depicted, but a time or two, the picture helped me better understand what the words were trying to describe. I look forward to reading the next book.
Use caution with younger or sensitive readers, this has scary parts with characters and being chased. Also, the whole coal mine laboring, cruel orphanage at the beginning may not be for everyone.
Items of Interest:
- Saint Lupin’s orphanage has all of the children working jobs and chores. They work in coal mines. They don’t have much for clothes and the food is bad.
- When children turn 13, they can finally leave the island with the orphanage. If they are not accepted into a questing academy, they have to go to the Pit. Which means they break rocks in a quarry hoping to earn enough money to do something else, but most don’t make it out after a few years.
- Anne sneaks into the orphanage library to borrow books to read.
- Anne and her best friend, Penelope, dream of going on adventures together. Neither gets accepted into a questing academy.
- Anne learns that you can travel by dragon fireball from place to place. It is not pleasant and gets the job done.
- Some magic spells are tricky, the wizard instructor at school has a platypus for part of his arm. He intends to fix that at some point.
- Anne and Penelope wind up on a high level questing adventure with a boy from the questing academy, Hiro.
- The quest hits many snags that would be useful to mention, if I remembered them, but alas, it has been too long.
Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):
- Book 2 – The Adventurer’s Guide to Dragons (and Why They Keep Biting Me) [review]
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