My seven-year-old daughter is reading chapter books so I wanted to get her into a series that I wouldn’t really have to worry about the content.

I ended up reading this one out loud to my 4-year-old daughter when my oldest finished. She loved it! It probably helped that it had a unicorn. The main character is named Lily and I find her often pretending to be Lily when she plays house.

This was my first long read-aloud. I’m not sure it was the best for 4-year-olds. I think there are quite a few words in there that she wouldn’t know what they mean. She was still able to get into the story and understand what was happening but some sentences were a mouthful.

I realize I am not really an auditory processor. When I’m the one reading out loud it’s hard for me to stay focused on the story. It’s not my preferred method. I read out loud slower than when I read to myself and I was reading shorter chunks of the story and going days in between readings while I waited for my daughter’s attention span to be ready to sit and listen. [We started back in March to give you an idea of how long it took us. I’m sure most can get through it quite a bit faster, especially if you read a little every day.]

That being said, it’s hard for me to review the overall cohesiveness and feel of the story since I read it disjointedly and distracted.

Instead, I can tell you that my daughters both enjoyed it! My oldest was begging me to get the next book in the series and I finally did get around to getting the next two for her to read.

They loved the magical aspects of the story and the bravery of Lily. There were a lot of perilous situations and life-threatening moments that I wondered might be too scary for my 4-year-old, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. It made it more exciting for her.

Plus this series is about hope so I believe there will always be happy endings.



The basic premise of the story:

Lily is 12 and had recently lost her dad while he was on a business trip. One day at school during an encounter with a bully Lily sees a character from another world, she had somehow ‘called’ to rescue the kid being bullied. She then finds herself in the Realm— a fantasy world filled with conjurings from human imaginations.

She is in possession of her father’s soothstone which gives her special creating powers. But in this Realm, and partly in her world, stewards (stone-holders) are being hunted by shrouds who are part of Eymah, the bad guy’s, army.

Along with her creature friends (Cedric the Dragon, Rigel the silvery bird, and Flint the fire-starter) Lily goes on an adventurous quest over the Cascades, beyond Castle Iridyll, across the Desert of the Forgotten, through the Petrified Forest and down into the Catacombs to help protect the other stewards and the good guys of the Realm from Eymah, but also to search for her dad who she speculates may not actually be dead.



There is some spiritual allegory in this story. The unicorn is Pax and seems to be a Savior character. Eymah seems to be a Satan character loose in the Realm. Though I’m not sure where the series will continue to go because Eymah seems to be destroyed by the end of the first book.

The theme of redemption runs through the story as both Adam and Cedric experience some sort of transformation from ‘bad’ to ‘good.’ Cedric has been ashamed of being a dragon, whose kind has done a lot of evil things, and desires to be different than other dragons. By the end he no longer has the ‘bad blood’ of dragons but is good on the inside.

Lily not only can create using her imagination with the soothstone, but she can also call on the help of Pax, the Unicorn. So when she is in danger and all seems to be lost she essentially prays and asks for help. We see Pax coming to her aid, but it seems like for the most part the connection is between Pax and her— not so much the others with her.

There aren’t a lot of overt Christian things or dialogue so I’m interested to see what else shows up in this series. That being said, I think a lot of readers may read this series and not even make the allegorical connections as intended by the writer.


There is a map in the front detailing the Realm which is a nice visual for readers. There aren’t illustrations in this book, but there are little images on the first page of each chapter. Those were nice for my four-year old who still prefers picture books. It helped keep her attention from chapter to chapter.



Recommendation:

Though I can’t speak on behalf of the entire series yet, from what I know thus far this is a great series for kids to read that you can be assured knowing there is no questionable content but has a theme of good triumphing over evil, highlights friendships, sacrifice, love, and redemption.

It is a good option for a read-aloud if your kids have the attention span for it.

There are some harder words but my seven-year-old read the whole book without really asking what words mean so either she knew them or they weren’t detracting from her ability to understand the story.

I think I will continue to read the next one aloud, but will probably strive to read one chapter a day to maintain more cohesiveness in the storyline for us.


[Content Advisory for kids: lots of perilous situations, loss of a parent, bullying, no swearing or using God’s name in vain]

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**Received an ARC via Tyndale House Publishing in exchange for an honest review**