The moment I saw this book, I knew my youngest son, Mighty Mite, would love it. Magic, animals, a cat on the cover … it just doesn’t get better than that in 7 year old land. The Familiars, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, is an adorable story about three animal familiars and their loyals, the young wizards they must rescue from the evil queen of Vastia. How can you not love a premise like that?
RL: 6.3 CSM: n/a Rating: G Content: Mild peril, lots of magical fun
Aldwyn, the alley cat that’s passing as a familiar even though he possesses no magical abilities, is a charming character. One mis-adventure after another leads this street-wise kitty into troubles he never asked for, with friends he never imagined (a frog and a bird?), and a love for his loyal that he never thought he would feel for another human or beast. Aldwyn is endearing and young readers will immediately be swept up in his search to save his loyal, a boy named Jack. Along the way are wonderful lessons about honesty, loyalty, and believing in yourself.
I couldn’t be more delighted with the messages and characters in this book. I love the high reading level as well, and yet it is aimed at fairly young readers. This makes it a perfect read for advanced readers as young as 5. Yay for books with Big Words!
I found this fun book trailer after reading the book, but I would have scooped the book up, based on the trailer alone.
On the book website, you can find your familiar and see the latest news, which includes The Familiars being made into a movie! That’s one we’ll be seeing, for sure.
The Familiars is also available on e-book, so load up your e-readers, hand it over to your advanced reading kid, and don’t expect it back for a while.
Happy Weekend!
My son really enjoyed this book. That trailer was awesome! What a hook. And I love G rated books with big words for advanced readers.
@Laura It is the perfect read for young advanced readers! (p.s. I'm hopping over to read P4H now!)
Oooo, my seven-year-old will love, love, love this. (With a little reading help from Mom) Thanks for the suggestion. 🙂
I've been wondering about this one. Now, I think I'll go load it onto my Kindle! 🙂
@Leisha We read it together – a bonus for mom! 🙂
@Shannon We have the paper copy, but I hope the illustrations come through well on the e-book! Let me know… 🙂
Oooh, I'm thimking that my seven year old might love this!!! Great post!
Great post. Hope your son enjoys it.
bethfred.com
Reminds me of LOLCATS.
I don't know, my cats have never rescued me. Bite my toes, sometimes.
Love the trailer, book website, and this post. Must get my hands on a copy. Thanks!
@Lindsay Yay! I think you will love it. 🙂
@Beth Thanks for stopping by!
@Michael LOLCATS rules our household. 🙂
@Bryan But have you ever been abducted by an evil queen? Don't count them out. 🙂
@Sheri I hope you like it! 🙂
It's great to see books easy enough for young readers that are engaging too. I would have loved this book as a kid!
@ Susan
I don't think my wife would want me to answer that question. 🙂
@Jill It was a fun read, even for me. 🙂
@Bryan LOL! If you're married, I don't think you can call it abduction. But maybe the laws are different up north. 🙂
Oh, this does look like a must read! Thanks for the tip! oh yeah, my girls will probably love it too 🙂
I've heard great things about this book, Sue! I'm glad to hear you like it too. 🙂
Looks like my kind of book, too! I'm pretty sure I'm a seven-year-old at heart. Well, maybe eight. Thanks for the review!
I've been looking through your fantasy recommendations at Ink Spells and I've added several books to my to-read list, including the Familiars. (I don't have kids, I just tend to like middle grade books a lot more than books written for adults). Thanks for doing all these reviews. One question though, have you ever done a negative review? I don't think I've seen any (so far) looking through your blog, and I've found that negative reviews (when they say specifically why they didn't like it) are often just as useful as positive ones.
PS: I also really loved the Lemony Snicket series.
@Liramore I don't do reviews, I make recommendations. By which I mean, I don't post about a book unless I have glowing things to say about it and can heartily endorse it. This post talks about why, but in a nutshell, there are plenty of reviews out there for people, if they want to find them. My purpose is not to say negative things about another writer's book, but to connect kids to great books.
I read that post about why you don't do reviews and I read part of the post you linked to there. Thanks for leading me to it because I think it's good for me to be thinking about that.
I've been reading books in the genre I write, sometimes even adding books to my to-read list that I found through the site of an agent I'm thinking about querying. And I have trouble thinking of what to blog about sometimes and writing about what I'm reading seems like an easy solution to that. As a result of reading those posts, I just deleted one of my blog posts. You may have just saved my writing career…
@Liramor I'm sure your writing career is safe, but I'm glad you have thought about it! I respect whatever decision writers make on this issue. I just want to make sure they have the facts and have a chance to decide for themselves. I'm glad it helped! 🙂