Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
The Awakening Audio
Fiction
For ages 12 and up
Unabridged audiobook (Digital)
Performed/read by: Bryan Kennedy
Penguin Audio, 2008
Every school day Danny, Colin, and Brian walk home together. Usually, before they go their separate ways, they sit on a park wall and chat. Usually, their time together is uneventful and very ordinary, but one day something happens that changes the lives of two of the boys.
Brian’s little sister turns up and none of the boys are particularly happy to see her. Brian tries to trick her into leaving them alone but things go horribly wrong. Furious with her brother Susie stands in the middle of the road astride her bike and shouts at him. She does not see that a bus is heading straight for her, but Danny does and somehow he gets to her in time to pull her out of danger. Colin and Brian cannot understand how Danny was able to get to Susie so fast. What he did was impossible, unless he is a superhuman.
Ten years ago, for some unknown reason, all the superhumans, heroes and villains alike, vanished. They were in the middle of a battle and suddenly they disappeared. The world has been without superhumans ever since. Colin is convinced that Danny is a superhuman, which means that at least one of his parents is a superhuman too. The day after the saving Susie incident, on the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of the superhumans, Danny and Colin talk and Danny admits that he is indeed a superhuman and that his father once was a hero called Quantum.
That evening Colin is at home with his parents when he starts hearing things that he should not be able to hear. He hears Danny and his father talking as they walk down Colin’s road. He also hears a helicopter that is a few kilometers away, and it is getting closer.
Before they have a chance to fully take in what is going on, Danny and his father, and Colin and his parents are on the run. The boys learn that ten years ago one of the supervillains created a machine that took away the powers of all the superhumans on Earth. Since then the former superhumans (including Colin’s parents and Danny’s father) having been living quietly, waiting to see if their children developed any superhuman abilities. Clearly Danny has, and soon enough they realize that Colin also has abilities.
Despite their efforts, Danny, Colin and their family members are captured by an unknown enemy and they are transported across the Atlantic to the United States. Though he does not have the powers Danny has, Colin manages to give his kidnappers the slip in Florida and he sets off for Virginia to find a man his father told him about. Colin has no money and he knows that his enemies are looking for him, and yet somehow he has to travel hundreds of miles in an unfamiliar country to get help.
This first title in the Quantum Prophecy trilogy will delight and intrigue listeners who like stories about superheroes. Listeners never quite know what is going to happen next, and exciting and sometimes shocking new revelations appear throughout the story.
