Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

The primary concern in this book has to do with its darker content. The characters interact with the dead and are even able to bring them back to life. Eventually a whole multi-generation family of ghosts are encountered. The dead (especially before coming back via the book) are shown to be in a ghost-like state. At one point the main character drifts off and sees her mother, who passed away, in this state. She says, “Oh mother, you’re still in the land of death and I in the land of the living. How lonely we both are.” to which her mom replies “It doesn’t have to be that way. The Book of Dreams. Find the key. Open the gate. Then maybe we can be together again”. Later she has another similar encounter and asks “Are you a ghost mother? Or can you hold me?” to which mom replies “I can do everything except hold you”. These and similar described scenes feel “haunting”. Probably the worst instance of this comes when one of the poems from this dark book that appears in-between chapters says, “Is there no way through the gate (i.e., the entry to the land of the dead)? Or should the living become dead?”. This could obviously be interpreted in a very dark and dangerous way. — There is also a decent amount of less desirable dialog. In one instance it says that Dad cursed as he had never cursed before and another where he tells the kids not to tell mom something that he plans to do. The main girl character says she hates all of the neighbors (who are ignoring her mother’s need for help). There is a comment that “there are so many ways to die in a normal kitchen”. Random instances of “Good Lord!”, devil, happy hour, dreadful woman, horrid girl, looked rather like a dead clown, pillage, strong rum, rather stupid girl, picked by the fates at random, ass (donkey), big fat liar, etc. A woman says she wants to throw herself out of the window (exaggerating about how much she dislikes decor). Later the young boy sees a life-sized portrait of the same woman and she is nude except for a pink feather boa that “covered all of the essential areas”. There is a mention of a cigarette/smoking. The book uses the terms ghosts, spirits, the reborn, etc. A man recalls helping a friend cheat on a test and justifies it. Marriage is shown in a non-Christian light when a king and his wife “get bored of each other”. — Nothing points to a solid understanding of God. At one point the comment is made that “‘we say someone lacks a moral compass’ as if God or whoever forgot to put it into certain people”. God’s name is used in a slightly irreverent way (“God help any…” and “God only knows…” when not really meaning to acknowledge the one true God). Similar use of the devil and hell (e.g., “all hell breaking loose”, “how the hell did you get in here” and “what the hell is going on”). — It mentions the bad guy has a torture chamber so far underground no one can hear you scream. The use of torture is mentioned several times, but never in detail. A man is shot and it describes blood trickling from his mouth. — The main characters, a brother and sister, are mostly solid, but do have multiple moments that are never really addressed to show the behavior as wrong. The sister loses her temper and attacks a “horrid girl”. In a similar moment one of the main characters says they want to fly at someone and rip his smug face open. The brother seemingly joins a group of young assassins because a girl who has caught his eye is paying attention to him. To name a few… — The bad guy in the story is a terrible tyrant. This leads to a lot of dialog that circles around him really needing to die for the good of the nation. At one point a character says that murder is almost always wrong, but killing of a dictator could be justified in the most extreme cases. There is another point where the question is asked if killing him is the right thing, to which the response comes that allowing him to kill others is worse. This is obviously a heavy topic for children, especially Christian children who are called to pray for our enemies and bless those who persecute us.