The Dopple Ganger Chronicles: The First Escape, G.P. Taylor

I am always on the look out for suitable reading material for my four children. Especially for my tween daughter who is too young for teen fiction but yet too old to still enjoy childrens books. I found the illustrations very interesting and all the type fonts used made it visually intriqueing. I will admit that because I am not used to reading this type of book that changing between traditional writing to comic-book style writing took some getting used to. In fact I had to turn back several times to "read" the comic-book page because I skipped over it taking it merely as an illustration.

However, once I got the hang of how to read this I enjoyed the book and fast pace of this story. I do think the author skipped over character development in order to put more focus on the antics and trouble the characters were in. Because of this the reader does not really get to "know" the character. I do think that most children will like this because it moves from one action filled scene to the next.

Twins Sadie and Saski Dopple and their friend Eric Ganger are in constant conflict. There is action and mystery surrounding them the entire story. I did not care for some of the dark images and in fact when readig this to my youngers I skipped over those parts. This is said as a caution to parents who will most certainly want to read this prior to letting their children read this so that they can address these things.

My oldest daughter (a 4th grader) loved this book and is begging to read the others in the series. My oldest son (a 2nd grader) liked looking at the comic-book style pages, the different font styles and illustration but did not show much interest in reading the rest of the book. My youngers (age 3 and 4) enjoyed the story read to them because they also liked the illustrations.

Thank you Tyndale for this review copy