Sky Raiders: Volume 1 (Five Kingdoms, #1)

by Brandon Mull

Adventure awaits in the Five Kingdoms-come and claim it in this start to a new series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Fablehaven and Beyonders series.

Cole Randolph was just trying to have a fun time with his friends on Halloween (and maybe get to know Jenna Hunt a little better). But when a spooky haunted house turns out to be a portal to something much creepier, Cole finds himself on an adventure on a whole different level.

After Cole sees his friends whisked away to some mysterious place underneath the haunted house, he dives in after them-and ends up in The Outskirts. The Outskirts are made up of five kingdoms that lie between wakefulness and dreaming, reality and imagination, life and death. It's an in-between place. Some people are born there. Some find their way there from our world, or from other worlds.

And once you come to the Outskirts, it's very hard to leave.

With the magic of the Outskirts starting to unravel, it's up to Cole and an unusual girl named Mira to rescue his friends, set things right in the Outskirts, and hopefully find his way back home...before his existence is forgotten.

• ISBN10: 1442497009
• ISBN13: 9781442497009
• Publish Date: 11 March 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Aladdin Paperbacks
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 432
• Language: English

Reviews

[KitsuneBae]

Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series is one of my all-time favorite middle-grade series so when I saw the ARC of Skyraiders being offered in Edelweiss, I immediately grabbed a copy. I'm sad to say that Skyraiders, while not a bad book, didn't really make an impact on me. And it didn't help that the author was always inserting random scenarios about the characters having a crush on this or that person when it just makes for an awkward story telling. It didn't feel natural at all.

[Beth C.]

Take one Earth boy, a Halloween adventure gone wrong, and an inescapable impulse and throw them all together in a blender. Add a bad dude with some daughters, a pinch of magic and a hero complex...and Sky Raiders is about what you will get. Brandon Mull is already quite a popular author with many kids my son's age - his books are interesting, creative, and apparently compusively readable. They are perfect for reluctant readers, in fact. This one, the start of a new series, is no different.

It hits the ground running, and the pace pretty much just picks up from there. My son read it before I did (he's almost 13) and thought it was "awesome". I can almost guarantee he will want to read the sequels. I read it and while I wouldn't proclaim it earth-shattering, it was interesting and creative enough to keep me reading and to be interested in also reading the sequels.

Overall, it fits right in the middle grade reading spectrum and would be a good addition to most any library!