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The Seven Keys Of Balabad (2009)

by Paul Haven(Favorite Author)

3.38 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0375833501 (ISBN13: 9780375833502)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Random House Books for Young Readers

review 1: This is a 3.5 from me.This book was written by a man who clearly knows Afghanistan and Pakistan very well. It's nice to see a rich and layered portrayal of the region in a children's book.The structure of the book was strange. The reader gets to see what happened 500 years ago, what is going on with the villains, as well as following the two boys as they piece it all together. Subsequently, the reader knows much of the scheme long before the boys figure it out. Surprisingly, this actually works better than one would expect. There were definitely points where I found this structure frustrating, but the good outweighed the bad.All in all, I would recommend this book to kids. For grades 5-8.
review 2: This is a really fun adventure/mystery set in a country similar... more to Afghanistan. The story switches between modern day and hundreds of years earlier when the kingdom of Balabad was under attack and an advisor to the king hid a huge treasure. The king's seven sons were entrusted with seven keys to unlock the tresure when the time for peace had come and then all seven went to their seperate ways. The time for peace, sadly, did not come and the keys were passed down to ancestors of the princes. Now an evil force is stealing the keys, presumably to get the treasure. Oliver is a young New Yorker living in Balabad with his ex-pat parents and he's friends with a local aristocratic boy. The two team up to the solve the mystery. The story is great fun with lots of colorful characters. less

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