Libraries have always called to me, in whatever town or city I am.
When I used to work in the Dunedin City Council, right in the heart of the city, the new, much-enlarged Library was built right next door. I can remember the first day it opened to the public: I ran out of my office at morning tea, took a few steps across a newly-built courtyard, and was in the Library door, racing up and down the stairs to see what was on each new floor, and amazed that the old library, which had seemed big enough to me before had somehow expanded into this five-storey building.
I used to say it was my second home, and I got to know all sorts of nooks and crannies.
Four and a half years ago my wife and I moved to a smaller town. My first impressions of the library here were not great: it seemed cramped (it was) and there didn't seem a lot of choice - something I was wrong about. Nevertheless, I decided that perhaps at last I could, in a modest way, fulfil a dream I'd always had of working in a library.
I asked if they took on volunteers to do menial tasks. Yes, they did. I told them I'd be interested, and within a week or two I had a job putting books back on shelves. At most it took an hour and a half, and some days, if the numbers of returned books weren't large, I'd be home after an hour.
The best thing about the job was that it proved that this 'little' library had a large number of books I'd never seen, and better still, it forced me to look at subject areas I wouldn't normally have bothered with before.
There was one other bonus. A moveable trolley of books that were now redundant, and which were available to readers to take home for a dollar a pop. But for me, being a worker in the place - I was permitted to take any book I wanted for free.
This was how, in the middle of last year, I came across Rob Lloyd Jones' series of four books about a character called Jake Atlas. As Lloyd Jones notes: they're part Mission Impossible and part Indiana Jones.
Jake and his twin sister, Pan, are the children of a seemingly dull couple of parents who vanish early in the first story, Jake Atlas and the Tomb of the Emerald Snake. Jake doesn't do well at school - he seems to be a troublemaker, and his twin sister, who has a brilliant brain, dresses as a Goth. But once released from school, and 'ordinary life,' they prove to be a formidable pair. Through a series of over-the-top adventures they manage not only to find their parents (who are also far more formidable than the the twins had thought) but to chase down a group who are, as you might expect, intent on taking over the world.
The first two books (the second is The Hunt for the Feathered God) have a similar format, lots of excitement, impossible adventures, and a huge climax.
And then Lloyd Jones takes a considerable risk with his characters, especially Jake. In the third book, The Quest for the Crystal Mountain, which is mostly set in Tibet, Jake starts to see the world through different eyes, aided in particular by a young Tibetan monk. At first Jake pooh-poohs the values of the spiritual life that the monks have lived by for centuries, but by the end of the book he's begun to change: perhaps the goal he and his family have been focused on isn't the most important thing.
This may not suit all readers, even though the third book is crammed full of adventures, like the previous two. The fourth in the series, The Keys of the Apocalypse, continues down the unusual path Lloyd Jones has chosen to take. Much bigger in scope, with a 'villain' who's not even human, this book allows Jake to grow as a person.
I wrote to Lloyd Jones commending him about the way in which this book showed Jake gaining considerable insight into himself and into his actions. He replied - and I hope he won't mind me quoting his email - '...the ending to the series did cause a little disagreement between myself and the publisher, who pushed for a larger, action based finale. I was able to convince them that a quieter ending would feel more powerful (it wasn’t as if the series was already lacking in action) and luckily they trusted me.'
Not all his readers agreed with the direction the books took. Some reviewers on Goodreads, for instance, seemed to miss the point that the books weren't all whiz and bang; others were full of praise for the way in which the series 'grew.'
Apart from this somewhat unusual turn-away from writing four books all with the same formula - which Lloyd Jones could have done - the books have a wonderful first person viewpoint full of subtle humour and clever character drawing. They're immensely readable - the pages fly by, and there are no slow sections. I'd recommend them to middle grade boys in particular, but not just to them. As an adult reader I was never bored, and never felt as though the author was trying too hard to achieve his purposes.
Top quality stories, though I'd advise you to read them in order.
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