I want to tell you about a book I recently read entitled "Leo's Heroes". I wrote a bit about it a few weeks ago when the author was kind enough to send me an advance copy of the book for the very purpose of reading and reviewing it. As many times happens, life got in the way and I was delayed. Thanks to a kind reminder by Mo, I got down to business this past weekend and dived into the world of Leo.
What struck me was how vibrant and alive his world is. His mother (or Mum) has a wonderful sense of humour, and both his parents show an intelligent and patient style of relating to him. His excitement of obtaining and collecting more toy theatre sheets reminded me of the excitement I've seen on many occasions of kids nowadays in comic book shops excitedly asking about this week's latest Magic-the-Gathering cards. There are words in the story that might not be familiar to American readers, but are fun to discover and learn, such as stookie, boffin, mudlarks, 'Billys & Charleys', chink, stum.
Aspects of the book are reminiscent of the the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, because it incorporates well-known (and some not so well-known, but fascinating) real people and real events from history - Benjamin Pollock, John Logie Baird, Frederick James Camm(and his brother Syd), to mention just some. The vernacular spoken by these characters bring the story alive and will immerse the reader, helping them lose themselves in the story - and that's what a good story SHOULD do!
One of "Leo's heroes" is Dr. Who, and ironically Leo himself ends up eing a kind of Time Lord, participating in key ways in various people's lives and events in the past. The ultimate answer as to how and why Leo can time travel is eventually revealed...but you'll have to read "Leo's Heroes" to find out!
"Leo's Heroes" book launch is scheduled for September 26th. You can find out more details at the author's website...
No comments:
Post a Comment