Stone Voice Rising by C. Lee Tocci

Tocci, C. Lee. Stone Voice Rising, 407 pages. $17.00. Houghton Miffin Harcourt, 2009.

 Sexual Content – G; Language – G; Violence–PG (gun shots, child abuse, surgical experiments on a child with no anesthesia, and attempts to kill children).

 Lilibit is six years old and lives with her two aunties and talks to her stones. One day a man named Mr. Tree, a stone warrior, comes to take her to a place called Kiva. On the way she is kidnapped by a company with a director called Syxx. She is taken to a facility where they perform surgical experiments on her brain for five years. Brain-damaged, she ends up in a foster home with six other children. The foster children take Lilibit hiking and where she takes a stone from a mountain causing an earthquake. The earthquake kills the foster parents, but Lilibit begins to recover and wants to go to Kiva. All the foster children decide to go. They are pursued by helicopters, media advertisements, and mercenaries hired by Syxx and his company. The stones enhance each child’s special talent, but will they be enough to get them to Kiva alive?

 Once the chase begins the plot picks up speed and though uneven, is exciting. The violence is not explicit, but the novel definitely has darker elements. Expect sequels.

 EL-OPTIONAL. Samantha, Public Librarian.