Review: Middleworld by J & P Voelkel

Middleworld – Book 1 in the Jaguar Stones series – by J & P Voelkel

Description: Max Murphy was a typical 14-year-old growing up in Boston. He liked video games and hated the way his parents spent so much time away. They’re famous archaeologists who were always taking off to explore Mayan ruins in the jungles of San Xavier. On their latest trip, Max’s parents disappeared while searching for the Jaguar Stones, mystic carvings sacred to the ancient Maya. Max is sent to San Xavier to remain in the care of his estranged uncle and takes it upon himself to search for his parents while becoming entangled in an adventure that includes a Mayan king inhabiting the body of a howler monkey and a trip to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld.

This review is based on a preview copy provided by the authors’ public relations firm.

WereGeek’s Review: (for the target audience of 8-12-year-olds) | (for anyone above age 12)

I wanted to like this book. I really did. And I think the plot shows a lot of promise, I just don’t think the execution matched the concept.  The main character, Max, annoyed me with his materialism, whining and sniveling, right up to the point of his sudden, inevitable conversion into a decent person. I know he’s a teenager and teenagers are generally moody and materialistic, but it was like the Voelkels used every possible teenage stereotype to accentuate his transformation later on. I really couldn’t get into the rest of the characters either as they mostly seemed like stock characters inserted to fulfill a plot function, like the foreign maid who speaks little English, the estranged uncle who may or may not be one of the good guys and the spunky native girl guide who teases Max mercilessly.

It’s clear that the authors did a lot of research on the ancient Maya because they put a lot of detail into the story. Really, an overwhelming amount of detail. I liked the dramatis personae at the beginning of the book and the glossary at the end, which help you remember the characters and absorb some of the denser information dumps in the text but with those included a lot of those info dumps aren’t really needed, unless the authors are trying to impress upon the reader just how much research they’ve done. It’s really great that they have researched the ancient Maya to such an extent, but not all of it needs to be in the book.

I know Middleworld is intended for kids between 8 and 12, not for adults.  I do think kids of that age will enjoy this book, but I think even they will see it’s not as good a book as it could be. It’s easy to say “it’s just a kids’ book,” but I think that’s a cop out. There are lots of very well written books for this age group that don’t resort to storytelling shorthand and an overuse of similes.

I thought about the review I would write on Middleworld as I was reading it, trying to keep in mind the audience the book is aimed at, thinking I might be too harsh since it is “just” a children’s book, so I compared it to one of my perennial favorites (that I reread on occasion, even as an adult) Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which is also an 8-12 book and a Newberry Medal winner. It may sound like I’m comparing apples to oranges here, but they’re both adventure stories with lots of dialog and exposition, so I don’t really think they’re worlds apart. To say nothing of the talking animals! Mrs. Frisby explains concepts with enough detail for children to get the gist of them in the context of the story without being overbearing. Any ideas I didn’t fully understand and needed to know more about, I either asked my parents or looked them up in the library. I think the wealth of information in Middleworld‘s glossary would be better utilized if it were a supplemental source for the main text rather than restating what’s already in the book. Middleworld could also have benefited from tighter writing and editing. Children’s books don’t have to be sloppily constructed just because they’re for kids.

As I said in the beginning, I really wanted to like Middleworld. And I very nearly did. The basic plot shows real promise at being a spellbinding adventure story that would grip all ages. Sadly, the execution could have had a lot more trimming and polishing and the overall effect is a book with great potential that fell far short.