The Bell Between Worlds by Ian Johnstone - ADVISABLE

Johnstone, Ian The Bell Between Worlds, 510 pages.  Harper Collins Children, 2013. $17.99.  

Language-PG (4 swears, no F’s); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG;

Sylas Tate lives with his uncle in a old, creaky hotel.  His mother was taken away from him when Sylas was five years old and then she is presumed to have died.  But what he didn’t know is that she had a very big secret.  After five years of living with his uncle, something in his life actually happens, but it is certainly not for the best. One dark, smokey evening, while Sylas was looking out his window at the church, he saw a pair of big yellow eyes that paralyzed him with fear and he hurried away from the window, thinking that it was just his imagination. Later that night, he woke up to an extreme pounding noise, but when he listened closely, he realized that it was the sound of a very loud, very big bell. When he sets out to find it, he is chased by giant black hounds that came for him.  When he is about to be caught, a cloaked man saves him, and leads him to the bell, the Bell Between Worlds; the bell that might lead him to his mother…

This book was very good, especially if you like these kind of fantasies. When it told a story about the past, it supported it with a back story so you could get a vision of what they were seeing in your head. The back story is what makes this book a PG in violence, because it explains the wars that went on in the past in semi-descriptive detail. It only swears when they are describing something. This book was very action filled and kept me busy while I was reading it.  

EL, MS - ADVISABLE

Student Reviewer: TS, 7th grade