Beyonders: A World Without Heroes

Mull, Brandon. (2011). Beyonders: A world without heroes. New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.

Eighth grader Jason Walker inexplicably falls into a pool where the zoo's hippo rests and somehow leaves his Colorado home for the parallel world of Lyrian. While all he wants is to go back home, he is nevertheless touched by the plight of the citizens of his new residence. Although they have rebelled mightily in the past against a wicked wizard named Maldor, the wizard remains firmly in control, and resistance has dwindled due to hopelessness and the wizard's cunningness in enlisting others to his own cause. Jason meets up with Galloran, one of the men who came close to defeating Maldor, and Rachel, who came to Lyrian while vacationing with her parents in the West. Galloran informs the two reluctant partners that there is one way to remove Maldor from his control of the kingdom: Collect the syllables of a word that will render him powerless. Jason already has one syllable, and the rest of the book consists of a series of adventures relating to the collection of all of them. Along the way, Jason and Rachel, called "beyonders" because they are not from Lyrian but from some unknown world, encounter an interesting set of villains and make a friend or two. Things move quite quickly in the book, and characters appear and disappear quite quickly, sometimes too quickly for readers to come to care about them. Middle grade readers who enjoy this sort of fantasy will love the description of the places these unlikely heroes go and the odd creatures they encounter. The huge frogs to be found in a swamp near the end of their journey are especially marvelously horrifying. This is the first title in a three-book series.

Favorite Lines:

"Accept as little hospitality from your hosts as you can. Beware gifts from Maldor. He gives gifts to people much as fisherman offer worms to trout" (p. 358).

"Steaming slabs of prime rib, legs of lamb, cuts of ham, heaps of fowl, fillets of fish, rows of sausage, morsels on skewers, and platters of tender shellfish all vied for his attention" (p. 367).