Peter Nimble and Sophie Quire have spent the last four years fighting to protect a world of magic and wonder. But a group called The League of Maps wants to measure and reason all of those magical things out of existence. This is the final showdown.
Peter Nimble and Sophie Quire have spent the last four years fighting to protect a world of magic and wonder. But a group called The League of Maps wants to measure and reason all of those magical things out of existence. This is the final showdown.
Adventurer Peter Nimble and his bookmender friend, Sophie Quire, are traveling with a swashbuckling crew.
That group includes the likes of a brave, cat-sized horse-knight named Sir Tode as well as an enormous talking tigress called Akrasia. This collection of friends has been working diligently to set all manner of things aright.
You see, their world is slowly being drained of its magic—those unexplained wonderous things like, well, tiny horse-knights and talking tigresses. And that loss of magic and wonder is all the fault of an organization known as The League of Maps.
It’s not that the League is wicked or evil. It’s just that the individuals in it refuse to recognize anything that they can’t explain, reason out and measure. When they encounter something wonderful, they examine it closely and point to all the ways that it’s perfectly normal and ordinary. And in turn, it becomes just that.
So, in the League of Maps’ view, Sir Tode and Akrasia would be nothing more than a deformed cat and a snarling tiger, both without understanding, wit or language.
In Peter and Sophie’s view, that must never be.
Thus, Peter and his crew have been waging a war against reason. Their plan? To find that secretive league and take them down with everything at their disposal. Peter, though only a boy, is an excellent battler with fantastic magical eyes. And Sophie does more than just mend magical books: She can use their collection of spells as well.
However, Peter and his brave pals come up short when the young captain receives a missive from his older sister, Peg. The message, though partially damaged, indicates that he must come home immediately.
Peter Nimble has sailed every inch of the map. He has visited more lands than most people might encounter in a dozen lifetimes. He’s seen incredible wonders and strange beasts. And yet of all those marvelous places, there is only one he can call home.
That place is the cursed isle of Hazelport, an island kingdom that has vanished from all maps. And if things are dire enough there that his sister would call for help, then Peter must go.
This new direction isn’t exactly the adventure that Peter had been planning. Then again, the best adventures rarely go according to plan. And little does Peter realize that the vanished kingdom of Hazelport … is the key to everything!
There is no discussion of Christian faith here. But there are some spiritual parallels to it in this magical tale.
For one thing, Peter and his friends are focused on some core principles and values that the Bible espouses. They are loving and forgiving of others; they’re generous and attempt to make moral choices; and they all sacrifice for one another.
In fact, it’s only a great, humbling sacrifice that Peter makes at the end of the story that enables his friends to survive and prevail.
There’s also a mysterious individual named Professor Cake, a powerful person who lives in a magical realm in the North. This man cares for magical creatures, offers special gifts and gives the young adventurers missions filled with choices and goals that shape them into being more brave and thoughtful people.
The book introduces Peter to a hell-like place called the Uncannyon. This life-sucking black void is deadly and filled with incredibly foul creatures. People can’t enter there without special protection and guidance. They do so in fear of death.
This story is about the tug and pull between magic and reason. From the very first chapter we see that “progress,” the belief in reason, sucks the life out of magical wonders in the world. However, there is magic aplenty in play here as well.
For instance, we hear about how Sir Tode was “hexed,” by a magic caster, combining the forms of a man, a horse and a cat into a small, cat-like horse who can talk. Later, the hexer wants to dissect Sir Tode to discover the secret to why he accidentally became immortal.
Peter, meanwhile, guides his ship by a bottle that sings directions when the wind whistles past the bottle’s lip.
Elsewhere great, giant turtles guard the island of Hazelport, not letting any ships in or out. But those beasts are transformed into rocky outcroppings by League members’ use of reason. And Sophie throws a handful of small Mermites into the water that swim about and destroy several ships by eating their hulls. Sophie also creates a flying ship that’s transported by a flock of birds.
A magic caster named Madame Eldritch creates potions and spells. She helps attach the lopped-off hand of a mandrake to Peter’s wounded arm, giving him a new limb with super strength. Peter fights a series of Rooks, child fighters who use magic weapons and spells in battle. And they also fight in a magical field that transforms into familiar terrain that the battlers know.
We learn that Peter was once blind, but Professor Cake offered him a choice between three different sets of Fantastic Eyes. These magical artifacts give their wearer special abilities. And someone eventually plants all six eyes in their forehead.
Potions are concocted. Spells are cast. A stone tower is magically brought to life. Doors are drawn with special chalk and magically brought into existence. A powerful storm is magically reshaped into the form of a man. Etc.
There are a plethora of characters introduced in this fantasy tale. Some are brief callbacks to characters introduced in the series’ first two books. But when the central characters—Sophie; Peter; his sister, Peg; and friends Sir Tode and Akrasia—are all separated and sent off on quests, they meet several important characters.
Peter gets kidnapped by a magical woman named Mother Hen. At first, she appears to be interested in preserving the magic of the world like Peter. And she has drawn in and protected a group of child fighters, the Rooks. However, we later discover that she is a power-hungry individual seeking enough magical strength to force the world into the shape of her own image and desires.
Sir Cuitous is a leader in the League of Maps. He’s a man ruled by reason, driven by desire to measure the world. He is cast as something of a villain, but Sophie ends up with the group and realizes that he and the League seek common-sense solutions to the world’s dangers. In a sense, they want to map out everything for the knowledge and safety of the world.
Professor Cake ends up being much more than Peter and Sophie believe him to be. They think he wants them to destroy the League of Maps, but, in truth, this wise man recognizes that the world is changing and about to turn the page on a new chapter of life. (Which will ultimately mean his own ending.) He wants his charges to see that change and to understand why it must eventually happen. In so doing, Peter and Sophie begin to see a much larger picture of life and the choices they have before them.
Peg ends up spending time with Professor Cake in his magical land. But she spends much of her time tending to magical animals in a large set of Fabled Stables. And though she was set to become the ordained queen of Hazelport, she gradually realizes that life is filled with choices and that simply serving in simple ways can shape one’s character and bring an unexpected sense of peace.
Near the end of the story, Sir Tode spends some quiet moments with his friend Peter. Sir Tode is known for writing out descriptions of their many adventures and mishaps in books of flowery prose. But the little knight notes that it was their quiet moments, spent talking, sharing their thoughts and reminiscing that were always his favorite adventures.
There’s no profanity in the mix. However, tempers do flair at times. Sometimes in those moments, there’s a bit of exasperated name-calling. Sophie, for instance, yells, “You pebble-brained cretin!” at one point.
Violence can be deadly at times, and it’s woven throughout this narrative tapestry. Peter goes up against a bunch of powerful creatures such as a Great Ape, a massive two-headed goose and a huge insect-like beast from the Uncannyon called a Flaying Mantis.
These and other beasties bash the boy around, and the Mantis bites him, severing his hand and causing his arm to turn black and diseased. Someone else faces a centipede with eyes all over its body. That character is told, “Their dung spreads blight! If you touch it, you’ll die the most horrible death.”
We also read about large battles between humans with flesh-ripping weapons and magical attacks. People are killed by sharp-clawed and fanged beasts and at sword point. Battles involve knife stabs to the heart and multibladed flails. Destructive spells are cast. A woman transforms into a massive bird of prey. A flaming tower falls on two people, crushing them.
Peg, when seeking a goal, falls into a lake filled with bits of broken glass. She receives small cuts all over her body. Sophie drinks a potion that increases her speed and strength; but she is raked by a beast’s talons, and her leg is broken.
[Spoiler Warning] To save someone, Peter must even cut his own eyes out at one juncture (though he does so while we are narratively elsewhere.) When we next see him, he’s missing a hand and is blind.
There is some obvious attraction between several young couples (male and female) but no intimate interactions.
Good stories have a way of nudging us to think about real life situations and ideas. What do you think this book was trying to get you to think about?
Is there any part of Peter and Sophie’s adventure that feels similar to something (good or bad) that’s happened in your life?
What about Peter’s failures? Have you ever been faced with a big loss or failure you had to rebound from? What did you do?
When things don’t turn out the way we plan them, how should we make the best of things? Take a look at Romans 8: 28 and Philippians 4:6-7.
What do you think God is trying to tell us through those verses? Does He promise that everything will always work out the way we think? What does He promise?
This middle-grade novel is packed with fantasy action and magical adventure. It asks young readers to think about important relationships in their lives and the many choices they have before them. And though it does not discuss faith, it does prompt young readers to consider the existence of things beyond that which is easily measured and reasoned through.
That said, parents of younger readers should note that there is an abundance of dark and sometimes bloody peril in this story mix. And some central characters are left badly injured by their escapades.
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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
