A review by bookishgrrrl
Freakling by Lana Krumwiede

4.0

Let me clarify...I really liked this book for a ten or eleven year old. I would even give it to an older reluctant reader. Despite an interesting premise, the writing is just too simple for the book to go much higher. And, it needs to, because the themes it addresses--pride, loyalty, deception, self-sacrifice and death--are ones that can require a bit of emotional maturity. My eleven year old read this in an afternoon and we had a great discussion about power, knowledge and making decisions for oneself or the good of others. Things I'm pretty sure the author intended and I liked. I also appreciated that the author explained psi as more than the power of telekinesis, but stipulated that in order to use it, one had to understand how something worked. A gentle introduction to the mechanics of magic that made the story more believable and more interesting. Great choice for readers who are too young to understand the machinations of Artemis Fowl.