Where I got it - This book was written by a lady that went to Linden Park Church, my parents bought it for ten dollars for my sister when I was little.
Why I never read it before - It didn't interest me as a child.
My rating - 0.5/5
Review -
This book is crap. I enjoyed it to a certain point, but I have to say I enjoyed it much more when I read it the first time...When it was call The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This book has to be just about the biggest rip-off novel that I have ever read. As I was reading it, I thought 'there is no way that any publisher in their right mind would allow this book to be produced.' One of the 'author comments' on the back is written by a lady who I know also goes to Linden Park Church. I looked up 'Ashlin Books', who is the publisher, and can't find anything about them on Google. I think that this book must be self-published and I feel bad for any kid that read this and thought it was awesome before they ever read any of CS Lewis' Narnia books.
Basically the story goes, a girl named Elaine Maddock (which happens to mean Light, Fire) is obsessed with reading 'lots of books about people finding magical worlds' (the only one that is specifically mentioned are the Narnia books). She and her friends Adam Boliston (meaning red earth and clay), Brooke Coburn (meaning Brooke an Stream) and Clarence "Clark" Zoltan (meaning clear life) set out on an adventure to find a magical world.
They randomly meet a lady, named Mrs. Nestor (meaning traveller), who gives Elaine a book that has magic poems in it that give them clues to finding the magical world. It turns out that Mrs. Nestor is the gatekeeper to the world and the four children travel through her clock to into the world of Keenan.
Once in Keenan they meet a butterfly named Parveneh (which, of course, means butterfly in Persian). He tells them that they are the 'Four Human Elements' and that the people of Keenan have been waiting for them to come and save the day. They find out that the princess (Hope) is dying and that they must take her some medicine. Parveneh gives them the medicine before dying himself.
The children travel along with no problems on a sea creature named Beriah (meaning creature) to meet the Desert Hermit who tells them that to get to the castle they must pass through the dangerous Takara Forest. He tells them that there are bad people there and that anyone they meet was answer a specific question before they should trust them.
Once they reach the forest they are kidnapped by the 'brown boot dwarfs'. Elaine and Adam are captured together and Brooke and Clark captured someone else. Elaine wakes up and overhears the bad guys discussing eating them. The bad guys leave and Elaine and Adam run away. They never even see the freaking bad guys, let alone fight them or anything.
They then meet Prince Lowell in the woods and don't even bother to ask him the loyalty question. Lowell (which I know means loyal even though his name meaning isn't mentioned the way everyone else's is) of course turns out to be a good guy and tells them that Brooke and Clark are already at the castle waiting for them.
They go to the castle and meet the Last Wizard who helps them to save the magic of Keenan and then they all go safely back home to discover that only two hours have passed (they're back right in time for Elaine's mom to pick them up).
Now, it's been a long time since I read the Narnia chronicles, so I can't draw exact comparisons, I just know that I felt so many times while reading this book that I was reading something that I had read before.
On top of that complaint, the dialogue was awkward, the characters were boring and this book literally had no conflict in it whatsoever, everything went the way the children wanted it to.
At first I liked how all of the kid's names meant something relating to their element (I love name meaning and have used it in my own writing). The problem is, every single name in the whole book (almost, but I'll get to that next) meant something important. Not only did these names mean something, but the author felt the need to point out every single name meaning, which in my opinion pretty much destroys that point of using name meanings for foreshadow and character development.
Even bigger problem - every name meant something important with the exception of two of the most important characters. The 'Desert Hermit' (who I would say is this book's Aslan) has a completely stupid and meaningless name. Also, the 'Last Wizard', what the hell is that? This guy tells them so much stuff and helps them save the magic of Keenan and that's the name he gets? Pretty pathetic if you ask me.
I have to say, this book pissed me off more than anything I have ever read before. I would not recommend it to anyone. The only reason that I gave it 0.5 was because I liked the idea of the name meaning for the four 'Human Elements'.
