The Young Inventor's Guild barely escaped with their lives
from the villainous Komar Romak. Now Jasper, Lucy, Wallace,
Noah, and Faye are finally safe, reunited with their missing
parents and ready to go back to what they do best;
inventing. That safety is an illusion and the kids barely
make it off the train with their mysterious protectors, the
men in black, before the train with their parents still
aboard explodes. The children, their schoolteacher Miss
Brett, and the men in black travel by train, ship, and
carriage to the remote village of Solemano which might hold
the key to why Komar Romak wants the children so badly, but
time is running out because Komar Romak knows where the
children are and he will stop at nothing to get to them.
THE RAVENS OF SOLEMANO or The Order of the Mysterious Men in
Black by Eden Unger Bowditch is book two in the Young
Inventors Guild. The title sums up my problems with this
novel. Written for Middle Grade readers, THE RAVENS OF
SOLEMANO is needlessly wordy and often repetitive in both
the action and the telling of the story. Weighing in at 465
pages, it is long, which wouldn't be a problem if there was
discernable movement in the plot. The children are pushed
into the action of the story without explanation or reason.
They travel with strange men in black who they assume are
meant to protect them, but they aren't sure because these
men in black only speak in riddles and no one understands
them except Lucy and half the time no one understands her
either. They are in constant danger as they
travel the globe. Traveling and danger are not plots though.
These kids do not make a plan to solve their own problems.
They don't use their brilliance to come up with ways to
protect themselves. They don't try to figure out who the men
in black are, or what Komar Romak wants from them, or why
their parents continue to abandon them 'for their own good'
until we're nearly three hundred pages in.
Miss Brett, their
schoolteacher who isn't proficient in any of the sciences by
the way, repeats variations of the dreaded "we'll just have
to wait and see" phrase, my favorite of which is "I'm sure
they have a plan for us." These brilliant children shouldn't
be waiting for someone to tell them what to do. They should
be active in trying to solve this problem from the very
first chapter. Stories written for children, middle graders,
and teens need to show characters within the same age range
as the reader solving their own problems even when they mess
it up royally. The reader and the character must learn to
navigate the world without adults and learn to make
decisions because life is always happening and adults,
parents, teachers, and mentors cannot solve those all those
problems for them.
THE RAVENS OF SOLEMANO is told from third person omniscient.
At times the point of view is clearly from an outside
narrator who is surveying the scene as if through the lens
of an observer, giving details that the characters
themselves would never notice. At other times, the point of
view is a deeper third person told from within the thoughts
of the five children or Miss Brett or the parents or
villagers they meet in Solemano. These switches often occur
multiple times on the same page. The reader is given
everyone's thoughts and feelings and can't take the time
needed to establish a bond with a central character. These
multiple viewpoints also dissipates any conflict between the
children themselves and between the children and the adults
in their life.
There are elements of THE RAVENS OF SOLEMANO that did spark
my interest. The science in particular is very interesting
and the history of scientific inventions was fun
throughout the novel. There is a decidedly magical feel to
some of the inventions used but I feel those will be explain
in a later book as The Young Inventors Guild grows in their
own studies. Faye's relationship with her mother is also
intriguing and I'm sure there is more to that story which
will be in a later book. Unfortunately, it won't be a book
that I'll read.
THE RAVENS OF SOLEMANO does offer loads of exotic locations,
cool inventions, and hidden treasures, but it's confusing
and lacks a clear purpose as the kids are dragged from one
danger to another without any goal to solving their
troubles. If your child loves science and reading, this
could be a novel that might interest them. If your child is
a reluctant reader (I have one myself), I do not recommend
this series.
It has been mere days since the brilliant children of the
Young Inventors Guild escaped from the clutches of the
horrible Komar Romak.
They've escaped with their lovely and caring schoolteacher,
Miss Brett; with their long-absent parents; and with their
bizarre captors, protectors, or both--the mysterious men in
black. And now they travel by train, destined for parts
unknown.
But a note torn from the hand of a dead man in a New York
tunnel guarantees that safety is an illusion. When the
children's world is blown apart, life will never be the same
again.
Soon, the children--Jasper and little Lucy Modest, from
London, England; Wallace Banneker, from New York, United
States; Noah Canto-Sagas, from Toronto, Canada; and Faye
Vigyanveta, from Delhi, India--find themselves in the
ancient Italian village of Solemano, deep in a mystery that
spans centuries. As they inch toward the truth of the men in
black and the secrets they keep, one terrible fact remains:
Komar Romak is still out there. He's still after them, for
reasons they can't even begin to imagine.
And he knows exactly where they are . . .
From the rolling plains of America to the wide-open waters
of the Atlantic, through the Strait of Gibraltar to a
remarkable village in the hills of Abruzzo, Italy, The
Ravens of Solemano or The Order of the Mysterious Men in
Black, the second book of Eden Unger Bowditch's Young
Inventors Guild trilogy, is an adventure like no other, as
the children draw ever closer to the answers to the
mysteries that surround them.
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