The Long Staff

Clare
Wilson
ISBN Number: 
978-1907354069
Genre: 
Young Adult

Fantasy:  The Present: Young Tom is looking forward to a summer of nothing but fun, fishing, and enjoying himself with his beloved grandfather. Having lost his father some time before, there is no one to explain, or show the purpose of a long staff that is always with his granddad. But now he learns that there is something special about it. There’s magic and that’s wonderful! However, everything good has a flip side, and when suddenly he’s transported to another time, he will be forced to confront it…

The Past: Tom has been summoned by another staff bearer, and meets a family that is a strange mirror image of his own. A terrible danger threatens everyone near them as an ancient evil seeks to destroy the staff and everyone wielding it. Tom must learn the paths and mysteries of magic, fast!

Magic, adventure, good vs. evil, all the stuff of fairy tales that never gets old. However, there are more interesting ways for all of the above to be combined. The story lagged more than flowed, leaving the impression that it lasted far too long with nothing particularly new to add. Both the storyline and the characters are very generic.  An infusion of creativity to make them more intriguing to the reader would benefit the book greatly. Getting back to these kind of stories is always comforting, though. Even at its most common, it is nice to live, at least for a little while, in a world of magic, and with the certainty that good will eventually defeat evil.

Mimi Smith