Review by Jessica.

Tomorrow’s Children

Legends of the Ells

Tomorrow’s Children Legends of the Ells is a book written in 2009 by the author J. T. Wheeling. It is a novel about our earth in the 25^th century and follows the tale of Yani, the half-Ell and the many friends and enemies he finds along the way. I have just finished reading it and thoroughly enjoyed it, in this short essay I am going to review the book and say what I most enjoyed about it and what could make this great book even better.

Upon reading the first page, I was introduced to feelings of suspense and wonder, there was a lot of action which immediately gripped me and I wanted to know more, who Yani was, why he was being chased and who this woman, Senga, who had just saved him could be. I felt that this was a good way to start the book as it really caught the reader’s attention, and as I read on into the rest of the chapter, I became more and more informed about what was going on. It was very upsetting when Mika died; I had feared it would happen as he was so weak and frail, but it was still very saddening, likewise with Bob’s death. I felt it was an intelligent way to draw the reader in as they would definitely feel truly sad for Yani, left alone, without anyone to care for him. I felt more connected with Yani and as the chapters went on, I began to like the plucky fellow more and more as his character development was steady and well paced and he was easy to relate to.

Soon the book started to get really exciting and tense with rivalry between Yani and Marc and meeting some other half-Ells. Pasco, Ragore, Turias and Lucy all had different personalities and charms, they were very likeable, were portrayed very well and I think the names chosen really suited them and they kept the book flowing.

Descriptions of characters like Macgregor and Estella were fantastic and had enough detail to make them realistic and tell you how they looked and acted without giving too much away about them and this again piqued my interest. The book had some marvellous cliff-hangers which kept me turning the page and reading more and more. My favourite of these was learning Yani’s mother’s whereabouts and I thought that the clever switch to where she was being hidden in various chapters was brilliant. One of my favourite scenes was ‘The Tower’, I thought it was a great way of making him grow up and develop into a strong young man, the things he saw in there were excellently described and the whole idea was carried out extremely well. I also thought that Yani searching for his mother was heart-rending and beautifully explained when he finally met his mother, it was truly magical.

Some of the ideas incorporated into the book were very smart, the idea of another race called Ells coming to our planet to help us with problems such as global warming and fuel consumption was great- a whole new idea as to what could happen in our future. The Staffs and the music tuned to them and their bearer were acutely thought out and I thought it was wonderful how Yani’s Staff given to him by the Elders was a completely unique and special staff and it helped him to escape when he needed to. I also enjoyed Estella trying to stay true to her father’s word, yet gradually falling in love with Yani, it was very surprising to find out that Estella’s father had captured Yani’s mother, great use of dramatic irony. Other great ideas, which I thought really added to the book, were the terrifying gorrats, the flying machine and Yani’s bee, the way Zandor turned to stone to save himself from death and the poison in Lucy and Elaire’s collars which prevented them from escaping.

In the first couple of chapters, I occasionally became slightly confused as so many things seemed to be happening at the same time and the plot was already rather complex. Now and again I wanted more description and explanations about characters and their backgrounds so that I could understand what was going on a bit better. The other thing that I found was that some things lead on very quickly, and maybe more time was needed to describe these scenes in better detail.

Overall I thought that the book was very well thought out, creatively and exquisitely told and I felt that it was a very awe-inspiring and thought provoking book. It combined exhilarating storylines with ingenious ideas and the whole story unravelled gradually with many cliff-hangers on the way to keep the story moving. The ending tied a firm knot, yet kept me wanting to know what would happen next and I look forwards to reading the second instalment of this thrilling tale.