Shower Land (series)
Shower Land (series)
9781761342523
9781761342530
Nat Amoore
James Hart
Puffin, 2024
208pp., pbk., RRP $A14.99
Monday morning and it’s time to get up but bed is a much warmer option. But Dad is threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t, and your little brother is cracking silly jokes so you hurry into the shower, turn it on and BAM! Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a field, naked, and an army of soldiers is heading towards you. Or, having had that experience, you resist having a shower until you really smell, and this time you find yourself knee-deep in snow on the side of a mountain in your swimmers!!
Such is the life of 10-year-old Felix in this new series for young independent readers.
Not since the infamous shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho has taking a shower been so precarious because you never know where you might end up as it acts as a portal to other places. Luckily though for Felix, while he finds himself in unfamiliar settings and times and his first priority is to find some clothes, he is able to find some friendly faces who are willing to help him find his way back home but not before he encounters characters with problems much more confronting than his own and for whom he is able to draw on his own family experiences to help solve, not only assisting them but learning more about himself and people generally, at the same time.
This is a fast-paced series, with appealing, humorous illustrations and formatting to support the newly independent reader, that uses the portal trope to transport both the hero and the reader out of the everyday into worlds where anything can live and anything can happen – just the kind of escapism that is needed at times. Young lads will see themselves as Felix, others will relate to the single-dad scenario, there is the more serious underlying message of self-discovery that adds substance, and it is just the right length for a quick read that carries you along wanting to find out what happens to whom.
And with the promise of a third, Walk the Plank, in September, readers will have something to look forward to.
