Reviewed by Candace Cunard for TeensReadToo.com
Eighth-grader Jenni Kershaw might not be part of the popular crowd, but she does well in school, has a few close friends, and lives a fairly normal life--that is, until everyone on her school science fieldtrip mysteriously falls asleep and wakes up in a different world.
The students decide to scout the land and look for some answers--or at least some edible food--and that's when Jenni encounters a "local," a dwarflike man who calls himself Crank and helps Jenni and the rest of her classmates understand the world to which they've been transported. In this world, called simply "Mother," Crank explains that there are different types of people born into specific roles. His people, for example, work with machines, another tends to animals, and others still are born fighters, explorers, or even spirits tied to particular elements.
Crank offers to lead the students back to his village, where they are directed to continue on a journey to the capital city in hopes that someone there can help them understand their situation. They set out, but Mother is not always a kind world, and they are beset by marauding bands who injure some of their number and impede their progress. And that's not all--the students soon discover that living in this world is working strange changes on all of them, transforming them into different species found on Mother, and sometimes not for the best.
Alan Tucker provides an engaging mix between the typical hero-focused quest story and a broader exploration of self-development. Although Jenni is the main character, and most of the story is told from her perspective, Tucker narrates portions of the novel from the perspectives of others, which helps to expose these characters' conflicted motivations. Once the initial group of students splits up, with some deciding to join with the powerful shapeshifter Mogritas who promises to help them develop their powers but possesses an ulterior motive for this generosity, the technique of jumping back and forth between perspectives increases suspense.
Although the book got off to something of a slow start, with the characters trying to figure out why they'd been transported and what they were going to do about it, once the transformation of the students into Mother creatures began the plot really took off. The transformations allow Tucker to showcase the personalities of these very different characters, and although it could be confusing to keep track of the entire cast of students at all times, by the end I had a fair sense of who everyone was.
The conclusion, while satisfying, leaves plenty of room for the next works in this series, and I'll be interested to see where Tucker takes this story next.
Eighth-grader Jenni Kershaw might not be part of the popular crowd, but she does well in school, has a few close friends, and lives a fairly normal life--that is, until everyone on her school science fieldtrip mysteriously falls asleep and wakes up in a different world.
The students decide to scout the land and look for some answers--or at least some edible food--and that's when Jenni encounters a "local," a dwarflike man who calls himself Crank and helps Jenni and the rest of her classmates understand the world to which they've been transported. In this world, called simply "Mother," Crank explains that there are different types of people born into specific roles. His people, for example, work with machines, another tends to animals, and others still are born fighters, explorers, or even spirits tied to particular elements.
Crank offers to lead the students back to his village, where they are directed to continue on a journey to the capital city in hopes that someone there can help them understand their situation. They set out, but Mother is not always a kind world, and they are beset by marauding bands who injure some of their number and impede their progress. And that's not all--the students soon discover that living in this world is working strange changes on all of them, transforming them into different species found on Mother, and sometimes not for the best.
Alan Tucker provides an engaging mix between the typical hero-focused quest story and a broader exploration of self-development. Although Jenni is the main character, and most of the story is told from her perspective, Tucker narrates portions of the novel from the perspectives of others, which helps to expose these characters' conflicted motivations. Once the initial group of students splits up, with some deciding to join with the powerful shapeshifter Mogritas who promises to help them develop their powers but possesses an ulterior motive for this generosity, the technique of jumping back and forth between perspectives increases suspense.
Although the book got off to something of a slow start, with the characters trying to figure out why they'd been transported and what they were going to do about it, once the transformation of the students into Mother creatures began the plot really took off. The transformations allow Tucker to showcase the personalities of these very different characters, and although it could be confusing to keep track of the entire cast of students at all times, by the end I had a fair sense of who everyone was.
The conclusion, while satisfying, leaves plenty of room for the next works in this series, and I'll be interested to see where Tucker takes this story next.
