I was going to recommend a book here, possibly in a list of recommendations or possibly in a more extended comment. I finished reading this story to the kids tonight and everyone enjoyed it. Before writing, I thought I’d hop over to Amazon and see more details about the book (since we found it in our church library and had no prior knowledge of it). The major details (cost, timing of the sequel) were no surprise. But in the reviews I learned that the characters were one-dimensional, the plot was unoriginal, and the storyline was slow (in the first half). I guess I can’t like the book after all.
I am not a literature specialist, and I haven’t read widely in the genre of children’s Christian fantasy. I have read the Chronicles of Narnia but I have a long way to go before I fully understand all that is going on. I could see some similarities, but those were good things, in my opinion (since Narnia was good, who wouldn’t want another such series?).
The Chronicles of Aedyn is written by Alister McGrath, a well-known British theologian. The first book came out this year and the second is due out in January. Our family would recommend this as an interesting book which was well written and easy to follow. The kids recognized many biblical allusions, and I recognized many more. It was a pleasure reading a book written by someone who knows Scripture so well and incorporated it so beautifully. I enjoyed not only the surface allusions, but the substructure built on biblical theology as well. If you have kids 6-15, I think your family would like this book.