Puddle Jumping: Homeschool Review Crew - 12 Gates Publishing Hamelin Stoop Series

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I was thrilled to get a chance to review the first two books in The Hamelin Stoop Series from 12 Gates Publishing entitled:

Hamelin Stoop: The Eagle, The Cave, and the Footbridge (Book 1)
Hamelin Stoop: The Lost Princess and the Jewel of Periluna (Book 2)

What is The Hamelin Stoop Series?

The author, Robert B. Sloan, raised 7 children who are now married with many grandchildren to Robert. He is also the president of the Houston Baptist University. He created this series to offer Young Adult fiction that is appropriate and uplifting yet still rich with vocabulary above most middle schoolers level.

I received the first two books in the series. The first book: Hamelin Stoop: The Eagle, The Cave, and the Footbridge introduces the main character, Hamelin Stoop, and explains how he got this name even though this was not his birth-given name. It begins, however, focused on his young parents who are being hunted by trackers from a different realm. They are after the baby boy. The couple cleverly and wisely hide him in a tomato box and leave him on the stoop of a child's home. The remainder of the book is about Hamelin's quest to find his parents and his true identity. To play this out, the chapters alternate somewhat between what his parents are going through, being captured by the trackers, and what Hamelin is going through, having been seemingly abandoned as he grows up. He ends up running away from the children home to find out who he is and to find his parents. He is led by an eagle and other supernatural and mysterious happenings occur along the way that, as the title infers, includes a cave and a footbridge as part of a test for the young boy. No spoilers, but one significant event is that his parents have another baby, a girl, but this was all at the will of their captors. Without giving away too much of the plot, one reoccurring event is a dream that his mother keeps having. Part of the dream's meaning is revealed at the very end of the book which then leads into the second book, Hamelin Stoop The Lost Princess and the Jewel of Periluna. This book focuses more on Hamelin himself and a couple additional characters who help him rescue a girl from a planned marriage to Tumultor, an evil character as the name probably implies.

The Hamelin Stoop series is planned to eventually have 6 or 7 books in it and will encompass the entire story that has an underlying parallel to the Bible. For now, these are the first two. It is written for the middle grade or young adult fantasy genre to bridge the gap between these age levels. It offers a higher reading level than most middle grade readers but the story content is appropriate for this age.

All of this was perfect for me since I have a child in the middle grade levels who doesn't really enjoy reading but reads at a much higher level than her peers.

I received two paperback books, each approximately 300 pages, book 1 is closer to 325 and book 2 is closer to 295. I also received two reading guide sheets which are not part of the purchased book set, but I absolutely appreciated since my daughter loves to work word puzzles, and the discussion guide was nice to follow along to open up discussions.

How Did We Use It?

As I like to do with books I'm not familiar with, I sat down to read and look over the books before deciding which child they would be most appropriate to share them with. So, I set out early mornings with my cup of coffee to see what these stories were all about.

What Did We Think?

I'm not a huge reader, and I was hooked before the first few paragraphs of Book 1 were done. These were so well written. I was kept on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened next all the while looking for parallels to Scripture. The end of Book 1 I found to be more of a lead into the rest of the series than an ending, but it did reveal a mystery. Book 2 had a bit of almost a fairytale story with the attempt to find and rescue a girl. All in all, I am so grateful we were given the opportunity to review these books, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the series plays out.

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