Emily and her brother Navin have moved into their Great-Grandfather Silas’ house after their father dies. They and their mother are looking for a new start, but they don’t expect it to come in the way that it does. Their mother is kidnapped by a tentacled beast and dragged into another world. When Emily and Navin follow her, they discover a destiny that links them to their ancestors. Together they will meet strange new friends, face deadly enemies, and brave the darkest secrets of their own hearts.

The Amulet series is an ambitious undertaking. In the first three books, Kibuishi begins crafting a layered fantasy adventure that features a legion of characters, a wide variety of locales, and many elements that will be familiar to fans of hero’s quest style fantasy and science fiction. The question is whether or not he will be able to tie all of those elements together at some point in order to end his series coherently. Even three volumes in, it’s hard to tell exactly where he is headed with his story. Kibuishi has offered a lot to his readers and expects them to keep up with him. That’s not a bad thing for a creator to do, but with about a year between each volume, that does mean that libraries should expect a good amount of re-reading of previous volumes.

The elements that tie all three books together so far are Emily and her brother. Emily discovers that she is a Stonekeeper, a person chosen to wield a magical stone. The problem is that the stone’s motives are not as benign as they might first seem…

This review was originally posted at Good Comics for Kids. Please visit the original post to see the rest of the review.

Amulet, vol. 1-3
Kazu Kibuishi
Volume 1: The Stonekeeper: ISBN 978-0-439-84681-3
Volume 2: The Stonekeeper’s Curse: ISBN 978-0-439-84683-7
Volume 3: The Cloud Searchers: ISBN 978-0-545-20885-7
Scholastic/GRAPHIX, 2008-2010

  • Snow

    Past Reviewer

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