The Blood Guard

The Blood Guard
by Carter Roy

From the publisher:
"When thirteen-year-old Ronan Truelove's seemingly ordinary mom snatches him from school, then sets off on a high speed car chase, Ronan is shocked. His quiet, nerdy dad has been kidnapped? And the kidnappers are after him, too? His mom, he quickly learns, is anything but ordinary. In fact, she's a member of an ancient order of knights, the Blood Guard, a sword-wielding secret society sworn to protect the Pure—thirty-six noble souls whose safety is crucial if the world as we know it is to survive. Now all those after-school activities—gymnastics, judo, survival training—she made him take, make sense. For suddenly Ronan is swept up in a sometimes funny, sometimes scary, but always thrilling adventure—dashing from one danger to the next, using his wits to escape the Bend Sinister, a posse of evil doers with strange powers. Falling in with two unlikely companions, Greta, a scrappy, strong-willed girl he's never much liked and Jack, a devil-may-care teenage pickpocket, Ronan is left with only his wits and his mom's last words of advice: Trust no one. That's a lot for an ordinary kid to deal with. But then again, maybe Ronan's not ordinary at all."

I read an article online called Your Paper Brain and Your Kindle Brain Aren't the Same Thing . Here is a quote from that article:

" Neuroscience, in fact, has revealed that humans use different parts of the brain when reading from a piece of paper or from a screen. So the more you read on screens, the more your mind shifts towards "non-linear" reading — a practice that involves things like skimming a screen or having your eyes dart around a web page.

“They call it a ‘bi-literate’ brain,” Zoromodi says. “The problem is that many of us have adapted to reading online just too well. And if you don’t use the deep reading part of your brain, you lose the deep reading part of your brain. ”

What does this have to do with my review of The Blood Guard ? I read this on my Kindle, and I have found that I don't seem to enjoy the books I read on screen as much as "real" books. Even books that I originally rated very high, if I re-read them on the Kindle I tend to wonder why I rated them so highly. So I'm going to guess that if I had read the paper copy of this particular book, I think I would have enjoyed it more. As it was, I liked it, but I didn't find it as spectacular as others seem to. And that is weird because it did tick all the boxes of a great middle grade fantasy/adventure. There was a lot of action, lots of humor, a really interesting and creative plot, awesome characters, and evil villains. So I guess I'm saying, read it for yourself and hopefully you will love it. Unfortunately, the paper copy of this book disappeared from my library shelves right after I put it out. I sure hope it gets returned or found soon.

Suggested Ages:
Publisher's Weekly - Ages 10+
School Library Journal - Grades 4-8