By Colorado Kids Advisory Board member Caitlin Rice

Title: Broken Sky #1
Author: Chris Wooding
Illustrator: Steve Kyte
Publisher: Apple
Number of Pages: 160 pages

Do you crave action fantasy books? If you're looking for a book full of action, fantasy and surprise, Broken Sky #1 may be a book of great interest to you. Kia and Ryushi, the main characters, are 16-year old twins of real power who have spent their lives being sheltered by their father from the land past the mountains, where their father's enemies lurk. During their 16 years, or winters, as they call it, they have been constantly practicing their combat skill, which just happens to come in very handy. When Kia and Ryushi become caught up with their father's past and his enemies from the land past the mountains, a tragic event occurs.

Throughout the book, Kia and Ryushi fight many long and harsh battles, trying to defend their rights and their father's rights. They find out that it is not easy to fight battles when you're fighting against people and creatures with many different supernatural powers. Because this is only the first book in the series, my guess is that Kia and Ryushi will have many more battles to fight and that we won't find out whether good triumphs over evil until the very last book.

I thought the characters weren't developed all that well in this book. Even so, I would most definitely recommend it to boys, or maybe even girls, between 7 and 9 years old, who like fantasy stories. For 7-year-olds, the book might be a little difficult to read, but if someone would help them, I think they would be entertained. On the back of the book it says that it is written at a fifth grade reading level, but I don't think that many fifth-graders would enjoy Broken Sky #1 that much. All in all, I think this would be a really fun book for you to read if you crave action and fantasy and can't keep your hands off of action and fantasy books! (October, 2000)

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A Reader Responds

I'm a 12-year-old girl and LOVE Broken Sky. I have also dragged my "18" year-old friend into loving it also. I DON'T think of it as a book for small boys. Especially later on in the series with the romance between Ryushi and the evil princess. I'm writing this to tell you I totally disagree with your review.

A second response

Hi, my name is Rachel and I'm am 14 years old. I LOVE Broken Sky and I dont think its for 7-9 year old kids. I disagree with your review as I would recommend this series to an age group of about 12+

A third response

I loved it and I'm in 6th. It's my favorite book ever. I read the whole series.

A fourth response
Hi, my name is Rosanna. I'm from Dover, England. I'm 18 years old, and I borrowed part 1, 2 and 4 from the libary. I love it already and I have only read part one and half of part two. I love anime so when I saw the book I knew I had to read it.

The webmaster responds

I'm glad several older readers enjoy Broken Sky. According to Amazon.com, they give the book a reading age of 9-12. The best thing is to check out the book before deciding whether it's for you or not.