I reviewed the first book in this series late last year. My son brought the sequel, “Wednesdays in the Tower”, home from the library last week, so I grabbed it when he was finished. This book picks up after the previous one, with Celie, Rolf, Bran, and Lilah, now safely with their parents again, continuing with their lives in a magic castle that regularly rearranges itself. Only now the castle has given Celie a griffon egg and wants her to hatch it and raise it–without anyone else knowing about it. Meanwhile the castle is starting to behave strangely, and no one, not even Celie, knows what it means.
Some of the magic of the first book is gone, but I couldn’t really expect anything less. The fun aspects of the castle can’t be new and interesting now–we know how it works and a lot of what it can do. Instead most of our wonder comes from experiencing raising a griffon through Celie’s eyes. It’s still a lot of fun, though clearly children will enjoy this more than adults. I enjoyed it, and I know my son did.
In this book George is setting up a third book, if not a longer series. Whereas the first book was a free-standing story, this one ends with the situation only getting worse. But clearly the stage has been set for the resolution to be exciting and interesting. I won’t say this book raises the stakes and/or gets darker, because the last book, in spite of the whimsical beginning, got pretty serious and intense. This book doesn’t actually hit that level again, but the potential is clearly there for things to get exciting and intense.
The book is aimed at the middle-grade audience and, all things considered, this isn’t anything they can’t handle. It’s less intense than Harry Potter or Brandon Mull’s Beyonders or Fablehaven series. Whether George maintains this lighter tone remains to be seen.