This is a clean Christian resource. The biggest thing to consider will be whether your child is ready for reading it given the appearance of some perilous content (Note: Make sure to read the Redeemed Reader linked review. While we have more focus on detailing out the potential concerns of this book, it hits on this topic at a higher level, but from an overall series standpoint). We set the concern level to “Medium” to make sure that parents carefully considered this content.
Below is a breakdown of what you need to know from a potentially concerning content standpoint for both considering this title for your reader and pointing out items to address with them if they do read (these items can lead to helpful conversations with your readers):
Early in the book Mu complains that he “hated school so much”. The context makes this a bit more “understandable” as he was placed in school years later than everyone else so he finds himself with only much younger children, leading to him being picked on).
When seeing a bad guy start to drink before potentially driving, Mu tries to reassure himself with a dangerous thought, “Well, one beer shouldn’t cause too much trouble; he had often seen his uncles down three or four on a night of dancing”.
There are references to children in the community being beaten by either a schoolmaster or parents, almost as if it is a normal part of life when they misbehave badly.
There are times of violence between animals. One of the slightly more graphic points comes when the key dog character Botu kills a hyena, “crushing its windpipe”. Baboons are said to “sport with death”.
When captured by a group of soldiers, Mu worries they might “eat him” since he ruined their meal. He shares that “he had long ago gathered that though cannibalism was a taboo subject, it was whispered to still occur in rituals of power”.
Mu himself shoots an animal.
Mu is captured and held captive. At a very perilous point, Mu says “He resigned himself that escape would be suicide”.
When sharing the backstory, we read that “They shot Mulgiga and “Zebiya and they left them for dead, taking the baby”.
At one point we read, “There were rumors of human sacrifice”.