Racer,
the talking squirrel, is back.
I
never imagined I would get attached to a talking squirrel, but I did.
Racer.
Once called Gray, is one of the leading characters of Martha Jane Orlando’s Glade series, three children’s
books: A Trip, A Tryst, and a Terror;
Children in the Garden; and The Moment of Truth. That series began
with a boy, Davy Murray, still mourning the death of his military father and
resenting his mother Sarah’s remarriage to Jim, facing the prospect of an awful
summer away from friends and his computer, “imprisoned” in Jim’s father’s rural
home. He’s discovered by Gray, a talking squirrel no one else can see, who
lives in the nearby forest with the other “Old Ones” – animals that talk and do
other wondrous things.
The
focus of the stories was Davy – a special kid, a “chosen one” who is the only
human who can see the Old Ones.
Revenge!
(Adventures in the Glade) picks up where the trilogy left off – returning
home after a celebration in The Glade in the forest for Davy, his family, and
all of the Old Ones. What was being celebrating was the upending of plans by
Jim’s cousin Ronnie to bulldoze the forest and replace it with homes.
 |
| Martha Jane Orlando |
Racer
isn’t the only one who’s back. So is Cousin Ronnie. You can’t keep a good
villain down. Ronnie, suspecting that animals helped Jim and his family stop
his plans, takes his two sons into the forest for some mindless hunting –
firing at will with aiming at anything in particular. And then things get
really interesting, and dangerous.
I
love these stories. They’re good in their own right, something any child would
enjoy, but they are also quietly filled with Biblical imagery. They are about
grace, and redemption, and about the giving of one’s life so that others might
live.
My
only complaint is that Orlando brings the story to a fever pitch – and then leave me wanting more. I have
to wait until the second volume is published in May.
But
Racer is back!
Photograph by Larisa Koshkina via Public
Domain Pictures. Used with permission.
3 comments:
Been reading the original Glynn. Am now in #2. Been reading Martha Jane's blog and found out about the books. Glad I did. I plan to share them with some of the kids in the church. Reckon I'm going to have to order another one now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Glynn!!! I am so pleased you liked the sequel. Sorry to have left you hanging, though, but I tend to do that!
You are a blessing, my friend!
Glynn - thanks so much for the wonderful review. She got me at the end too. We will have to wait and see if the 'stagecoach' goes over the cliff.
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