Books for Kids: Worlds collide in Kenneth Oppel's riveting novel
Books
Best of All Worlds
By Kenneth Oppel
Penguin Teen Canada
Age 12 and older
Thirteen-year-old Xavier Oak, a gamer and avid fan of Dungeons & Dragons (and the narrator of Kenneth Oppel's new book), had reluctantly agreed to spend the weekend at the family's lakeside cottage with his father, Caleb, and pregnant stepmother, Nia. Older brother Sam had a soccer game and stayed home with their mother. But when Xavier woke up that first morning at the cottage, his life changed dramatically — and apparently forever.
He heard a goat bleating, and when he looked out the window he saw that the lake was gone and the cottage was now on farmland. What's more, when he and his father explored the property, they eventually discovered that other than two goats, 15 chickens and some ducks, they were the only signs of life under a seemingly impenetrable dome. Xavier concludes they've been abducted by aliens, and that the biodome, with a diameter of about 10 kilometres and a circumference of 32 kilometres, is somewhere in outer space.
What follows is a riveting account of three people making a life for themselves away from everything they have ever known, joined within days by an infant who has never known anything else. When, 41 pages into this book, I discovered they'd been living this way for three years — and become proficient farmers in the process — I was shocked, and Xavier's longing for his mother and his brother Sam became especially poignant.
By now they had seven goats in addition to the chickens, and three-year-old Noah found a puppy in the orchard. Xavier knows their unidentified abductors — simply referred to as 'they' throughout the book — have a soft spot for Noah, occasionally leaving him gifts. He was the result of a difficult birth and 'they' knocked the family out, saved the baby, and even changed the bloody sheets. Xavier, meanwhile, feels more and more like an outsider as he misses his mother and older brother; when his phone dies, he feels especially devastated, since he has spent three years texting his brother (albeit without service). 'All my music and pictures, all my one-way conversations with Sam, gone forever,' he tells us.
When Xavier stumbles onto a site apparently intended for another dwelling, and watches a horde of 'glittering midges' construct a two-storey lodge that turns out to belong to a family with two daughters — one a 16-year-old, the other about four — this already fantastic story takes even more incredible twists and turns, with issues that will strike readers as surprisingly timely and current.
A blurb on the back cover has author David Levithan calling this book a masterpiece, adding: 'As soon as you finish, you'll want to talk to someone about it.' That was certainly the case for me, although the first thing I did was reread the whole book in hopes of finding answers to the questions I still had about this well-crafted story — one that kept me guessing right to the end.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Montreal Gazette
2 days ago
- Montreal Gazette
Books for Kids: Worlds collide in Kenneth Oppel's riveting novel
Books Best of All Worlds By Kenneth Oppel Penguin Teen Canada Age 12 and older Thirteen-year-old Xavier Oak, a gamer and avid fan of Dungeons & Dragons (and the narrator of Kenneth Oppel's new book), had reluctantly agreed to spend the weekend at the family's lakeside cottage with his father, Caleb, and pregnant stepmother, Nia. Older brother Sam had a soccer game and stayed home with their mother. But when Xavier woke up that first morning at the cottage, his life changed dramatically — and apparently forever. He heard a goat bleating, and when he looked out the window he saw that the lake was gone and the cottage was now on farmland. What's more, when he and his father explored the property, they eventually discovered that other than two goats, 15 chickens and some ducks, they were the only signs of life under a seemingly impenetrable dome. Xavier concludes they've been abducted by aliens, and that the biodome, with a diameter of about 10 kilometres and a circumference of 32 kilometres, is somewhere in outer space. What follows is a riveting account of three people making a life for themselves away from everything they have ever known, joined within days by an infant who has never known anything else. When, 41 pages into this book, I discovered they'd been living this way for three years — and become proficient farmers in the process — I was shocked, and Xavier's longing for his mother and his brother Sam became especially poignant. By now they had seven goats in addition to the chickens, and three-year-old Noah found a puppy in the orchard. Xavier knows their unidentified abductors — simply referred to as 'they' throughout the book — have a soft spot for Noah, occasionally leaving him gifts. He was the result of a difficult birth and 'they' knocked the family out, saved the baby, and even changed the bloody sheets. Xavier, meanwhile, feels more and more like an outsider as he misses his mother and older brother; when his phone dies, he feels especially devastated, since he has spent three years texting his brother (albeit without service). 'All my music and pictures, all my one-way conversations with Sam, gone forever,' he tells us. When Xavier stumbles onto a site apparently intended for another dwelling, and watches a horde of 'glittering midges' construct a two-storey lodge that turns out to belong to a family with two daughters — one a 16-year-old, the other about four — this already fantastic story takes even more incredible twists and turns, with issues that will strike readers as surprisingly timely and current. A blurb on the back cover has author David Levithan calling this book a masterpiece, adding: 'As soon as you finish, you'll want to talk to someone about it.' That was certainly the case for me, although the first thing I did was reread the whole book in hopes of finding answers to the questions I still had about this well-crafted story — one that kept me guessing right to the end.
CBC
4 days ago
- CBC
How a run-in with a giant eel influenced Cressida Cowell's bestselling book series
How to Train Your Dragon is one of the most successful children's franchises of all time, spanning books, animated movies and a new live-action remake that just hit the big screen. With its focus on mythical fire-breathing creatures, this fantasy series might seem as far from reality as you can get. But author Cressida Cowell, the creator of the original book series, says a lot of the story was inspired by her real-life childhood experiences. Growing up in the 1970s, Cowell spent every summer holiday roughing it with her family on a remote Scottish island without electricity. Her father, a businessman, was an avid outdoorsman who took every opportunity to live off-the-grid in nature. "His heart was in the wilderness," Cowell tells Q guest host Gill Deacon in an interview. "Every year from when I was a baby, we would be dropped off on this uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland and picked up again two weeks later." When Cowell was nine, her dad built a house on the island so their family could vacation there all summer. She remembers him telling her stories about the Vikings who had once invaded the area. This gigantic six-and-a-half foot conger eel was writhing around in the lobster pot. "This was Viking Scotland, basically, it was the first place the Vikings came to when they invaded Great Britain and it was the last place they left," she says. "Lots of the stories from the islands … were about dragons because Vikings thought that dragons were real." One day, while out fishing with her dad, Cowell had a surprise encounter with a real-life monster. "My dad put this lobster pot over the side and he jumped back on the boat and this gigantic six-and-a-half foot conger eel was writhing around in the lobster pot," she says with a laugh. "He had to tie it to the back of the boat because he couldn't take it on, you know, these things are huge! … You can see why Vikings believed that dragons were real." The author says her relationship with her father, whom she describes as being "fearless," is very much reflected in her books. Cowell has just released a new spin-off novel, How To Train Your Dragon School: Doom of the Darkwing, which is out now.
Geek Dad
18-06-2025
- Geek Dad
Review – Batman: Detective Comics #1098
Batman: Detective Comics #1098 cover, via DC Comics. Ray: The secret society of Elixir has been running amok in Gotham – and they don't like their power challenged. Last issue saw Harvey Bullock investigating a series of murders by the immortality cult – but as soon as he got too close, he was hooded, thrown in a van, and is currently on his way to Polkolistan. Batman wastes no time chasing after his PI frenemy, but when he crashes the convoy, he doesn't find Bullock at all – he finds the Penguin, also kidnapped from Gotham by the same villains for not liking them horning in on his territory. This leads to a forced team-up between the two sworn enemies – not far off from Penguin regaining his power in Tom King's solo comic. It's very clear they don't like each other, but Batman isn't willing to leave someone behind and Penguin is willing to take any help he can get to escape a foreign torture den. Frenemies. Via DC Comics. As for Harvey Bullock, he's not in the initial convoy – he's already been taken to Elixir's inner sanctum, where a sadistic doctor is convinced he can make him talk. Bullock is always a fun character to follow – he's so stubborn he doesn't know what's good for him, but his blue-collar aesthetic means he can take self-confident villains by surprise at times. Eventually, the odd trio reunites and Batman has to figure out how he can get these two bickering idiots out of Pokolistan alive. The issue is overall a lot of fun, although it's 90% action and moves very fast. What makes it work is the trio of oil-and-water personalities who dominate it – and the story isn't done yet, with a tense cliffhanger. I'm wondering if the themes of immortality that have dominated this run so far are leading to pulling in the DCU's most famous immortal supervillain – who has obviously tangled with Batman many times before. To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week. GeekDad received this comic for review purposes. Liked it? Take a second to support GeekDad and GeekMom on Patreon!
