Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Endymion Spring
Fiction
For ages 12 and up
Penguin Canada, 2006 ISBN: 978-0141320359
Blake does not know what to think of being in Oxford. His mother is there to gather research material and he and his sister have been brought along. He cannot help liking the fact that he is missing school but he also misses his father and he is worried that his parents may make this separation permanent. His mother has a habit these days of leaving her children in one of the many college libraries which she works. One day Blake encounters a book unlike any other. It is called Endymion Spring and somehow it bites him, or at least it seems to do so. He certainly hurts his hand on the serpent head clasp which keeps the book closed and try as he might he cannot help feeling that the fangs on the head did indeed bite him. Inside the book is blank, or at least it seems to be at first glance.
When the bizarre book disappears Blake is driven to try to find it again. There is something very important about that book and for some reason he is sure that finding it is something that he has to do.
What he does not know until later is that the book is indeed important. It holds the key to the book of all books, the Last Book which holds the wisdom of the centuries. Long ago an apprentice of the famous book printer Johannes Gutenberg, a boy called Endymion Spring, found himself caught up in a desperate battle to keep the secrets of the ages out of the hands of an evil man called Fust. Now Blake has to continue that battle and keep Endymion Spring’s remarkable book safe from the dark shadow that seeks the book and its powers.
In this remarkable book the author skillfully combines history, legend, and fantasy to create a tale which is riveting and which will capture the imagination of readers of all ages. Told from the point of view of Blake in present day Oxford and also from the point of view of Endymion Spring in Germany in the mid 1400’s, the story keeps the reader wondering and questioning right through to the surprising and highly satisfactory ending.
