Book Review: Fantasy creatures bring story to life
Everyone eventually becomes tired of the same dragons, dwarves, elves, nymphs and other mystical creatures that bombard the books of the fantasy genre. How many stories can revolve around the same creatures? It’s surprising how often these magical beings are used.
One is hard pressed to find a fantasy book without one of those creatures in the pages of the book. One series, however, has none of those beasts within its cover but still fits perfectly into the fantasy genre.
“Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo,” the first book in the Leven Thumps series by Obert Skye, is a book about a boy named Leven.
It begins much the same as the Harry Potter books do: a boy is orphaned, goes to live with his aunt and uncle, and then in his teenage years, discovers that he has remarkable powers.
There are some differences, however. While Leven may be an orphan, he is actually a descendant of one of the most powerful nits, people with magical powers from the land of Foo.
Foo is the land of dreams. There, the nits and other creatures, unheard of in any other story, shape the dreams of humans. Without Foo, dreams would not exist and humanity would never be the same.
But how does one get into Foo? It can only happen under the following circumstances: one must be on an unevenly paved sidewalk or street, the temperature must be divisible by seven and there must be some shooting stars in the sky.
The only bad thing is that once someone gets into Foo, they can never get out again. That is, they couldn’t get out until Leven’s mysterious grandfather makes a gateway between Foo and the human world.
In the human world, it lies at the bottom of a lake in Germany; in Foo, it hides in a room in Hector Thumps’ home.
Sabine, an evil nit, wants to find the gateway so he can combine the human world and Foo, thereby destroying all of Foo and the dreams of mankind.
Clover, a little creature called a sycophant, is sent by Geth (the king of Foo, who was cursed by Sabine into being a seed for a great oak tree, and then was brought to earth through the gateway by a nit named Antsel) to protect Leven and bring him to Foo.
Another nit, Winter, is also sent to help Leven come to Foo. But why must Leven go to Foo?
As the grandson of Hector Thumps, he is the only one that can destroy the gateway and it must be destroyed before Sabine can complete his destructive plan.
As Leven, Clover and Winter travel from Oklahoma to Germany, they discover that Geth has been cut up from being a beautiful tree into being a toothpick. Geth must get back to Foo to restore order, and he can not do that without Leven’s help.
They must be careful, however, for Sabine’s shadows are trying to hunt down Leven and stop him from destroying the gateway. Leven cannot fall asleep on their journey without dire consequences and, as one might expect, it takes a little while to get to Germany from Oklahoma.
So, all of mankind’s dreams rest in the hands of a teenage boy that has a white stripe in his hair, and his only help comes from a little fury creature, a teenage nit and a toothpick.
The story might sound a little cheesy, but it’s excellently written and very creative.
There isn’t one mention of a dragon, fairy, or wizard; every creature presented in this book are creatures never heard of before.
The series is an excellent though easy read, and is well worth the time spent to read it.
–jill.bowers@aggiemail.usu.edu