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Book Review: Children of the Lamp, by P. B. Kerr
Summary
This book is about 12-year-old twins John and Philippa Gaunt who discover that they are genies, or djinn. Their Uncle Nimrod, also a djinn, is teaching them to control their powers which include traveling to different places, making objects appear and disappear, and of course granting three wishes. John and Philippa also learn about how there has to be an equal balance of good and bad luck in the world for things to be harmonic.
However, an evil tribe of djinn called the Ifrit would like to have a bit more of bad luck in the world. They can succeed at this if they find the 70 lost djinn, once controlled by Akhenaten. If they were to find these djinn, then the luck of the world would be thrown out of control and everyone would be slipping on bananas and losing their jobs and such. It's up to Philippa, John, and Nimrod to find the djinn before the Ifrit. Throw in Nimrod's one-armed butler, Mr. Groanin, getting trapped in lamps, and two dogs that aren't what they seem and you have an amazing and magical adventure that will leave you wanting more.
What I Thought
I completely loved this book! Not only was the plot intense and original, the characters were interesting and real. It is funny as well as frightening. My favorite thing about this book was the writing style. It's kind of hard to explain, so I will just show you with this paragraph from Chapter One, page 13:
"Later on, the twins went to school as usual, and nothing much happened, as was usual, too. John and Philippa were near the top of the class in most subjects, except math, but it was in P.E. that they really excelled, if only because they were so very, very-much more fit than most of the children in their school, many of whom were lazy and overweight. The reason why the twins were so fit was because they were both claustrophobic, meaning they hated in enclosed spaces. They especially hated elevators, which, as might be imagined, caused them something of a problem in a city like New York, with so many tall buildings. When most people took the elevator, John and Philippa took the stairs, sometimes running up as many as fifty or sixty flights of stairs to get where they were going. This made the twins as fit as a pair of fleas. In fact, fleas would have had to have joined a gym to be as fit as John and Philippa. But even two children as fit as John and Philippa could not be as quick as an elevator, and as a result, they were notoriously late for almost everything."
Do you see why I like it? It's a paragraph about random everyday things, but the way P. B. Kerr words it makes it interesting.
If there was one bad thing I would have to mention about the book I would have to say towards the middle the plot got kind of slow. But even with that I give the book 4 and 1/2 stars. I recommend it to everyone. Please read it, I guarantee you will like it!
~singel12
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