Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

This book has a “magical”, mysterious feel from start to finish, which families may or may not be comfortable with. What follows are some details that will help you understand to an extent, but our very strong recommendation on this one is to read a few of the short chapters to really get a feel (and that is a good word for it) for this title. The family members who descend from the ancient family line of an old king are ‘endowed’ with mysterious abilities. The author does a nice job of thinking of different abilities outside of the normal you might expect. For example, Charlie can hear the conversations that were going on when a photograph was taken. Another boy can similarly feel the feelings of the last person to wear a piece of clothing. Another boy can talk to animals. A bad character has a form of hypnotism and it is said that past members have this ‘unusual talent’ as well as ‘mind reading and bewitchery’. The most obviously “dark” abilities like these, at least in this first title of the series, are confined to the bad/villain characters. The worst of these villains is a boy in the school who can turn into a wolf. A character in the book remarks this is, “kind of like a werewolf”. At one point this wolf character is chasing Charlie, but the author doesn’t allow it to become overly scary and the rescue by ‘good’ characters from the school becomes the focus. There are a handful of more serious comments, seemingly out-of-place with the rest of the book, such as when we are told that a group of people in a house believe a tree “would probably fall on the roof one day and kill them all in their beds”. Similarly, Charlie is told that his father passed away years ago when his car plunged off the road into a quarry and a story at the school circles of a girl who entered nearby ruins during a game and was never seen again. These are few and far between, but it is good to know they are there. The worst comments in the book, and the most out-of-place with the rest of the content comes when the author seems to be trying to be funny. To show off Charlie’s ability in a lighter way, the author has him with his family looking at a magazine cover. We hear the people at the photo shoot conversing. Someone says, “You’ll have to lose weight, darling. You’re busting out of that bikini”. This is followed by someone saying, “You leave my girl alone, you great ***!!! I like them chubby” (book uses stars to imply cursing without writing it). And then finally the ‘subject’ of these comments replies, “That’s it. I’ve had it with you guys. You can both ***”. There are a handful of random mentions of things like a ‘premonition’, witches (wondering if aunts are witches), and vampires.