Leo Lomax and his brother, Hollis, lost their parents in a
plane crash and are sent to live with their father's step-
brother, Crane. Crane imports and sells mysterious and
expensive artifacts and lives in a futuristic building in
the run-down depths of Brooklyn. Leo turns 13 the day they
move and learns that he has a special ability to bend sound
which means that when he touches certain objects, he can
hear their past.
For example, he knows that a girl's pen
was a gift from her father. But Leo's yearning to find a
purpose for this gift takes him on an
adventure to a special island.
In SOUND BENDER, Lin Oliver and her son, Theo Baker, do a
nice job with Leo's 13-year-old character, giving him
enough slang without going overboard. Baker, a deejay, has
a strong interest in sound like Leo, and this comes through.
The writing style is definitely more toward
action than literary, but while a little out there, the
tale is believable enough and will keep your
interest. While it may appeal to boys more than girls, I
certainly think girls, especially those with an interest in
science and sound, will enjoy it.
Leo's character is the most well-developed along with his
mentor, Jeremy and his best friend, Trevor, a tall
boy who opts to study science rather than play basketball.
The lesser characters like Crane and his staff have a more
cartoonish quality, but as Leo is the center of the story,
SOUND BENDER
as the beginning of a series and would be interested in
seeing more stories of Leo's adventures.
A roaring, supernatural adventure that spans New York, and
the globe!After their parents' plane goes down over the
ocean, Leo and his brother Hollis are forced into the
custody of their rich and enigmatic uncle Crane, a dealer of
rare and probably illicit antiques. But almost as soon as
he's settled--or as close to settled as he can get in the
bleak Brooklyn mansion, surrounded by his uncle's dubious
staff--Leo receives a mysterious package his father put
together long ago, to be opened on his 13th birthday. With
the package, Leo discovers he has an amazing ability. He can
hear the history of any object by touching it. But when Leo
finds a strange helmet buried among his uncle's artifacts,
and hears a pained cry coming from it, a mystery unravels as
to its origin.