Maggie Bowman's Reviews > Thirteens

Plot line was very original and though I was mostly set against this book before I read it (I expected it to be like horror/supernatural, which I don't like) I will say it mostly won me over. How? Because it did stray back into the territory of classic fantasy, both in the villains and how the heroes battle them--with logic, friendship, and loyalty. Always excellent traits for children to exhibit in the face of evil.
I did take one star off solely for personal convictions in that there was a sentence condoning Wiccanism (not practiced by the main characters) and I really hate when fantasy tries to tie an imaginary world to the real world by assigning moral values to people and groups that don't show up in the story in any other way. This bothers me for two reasons 1) I don't like Wicca, which I realize is an entirely personal belief, but more importantly, 2) What did this add to the story? Nothing. Nothing but the author's personal viewpoint about the aforementioned group.
I truly believe that readers should be encouraged to discern virtuous traits and decide for themselves what groups in the real world exhibit these traits. Good stories can only act as a mirror to your own life and to your world. They cannot determine the value of what is shown. But perhaps I just love how deftly Lewis handles this same imaginary/real world connection in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund, "But there (earth) I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."