A boy’s adventure that raises some profound moral questions.'It wasn’t really about living or dying at all. It was about honor. To die with honor was more important than to live without any.'Connor is 14 when his father loses his job in California and he has to move with his parents to Montana. He is profoundly resentful of having to leave his friends and go to live in a place at the backend of beyond. For some reason that we are not told, Connor doesn’t have a phone or the internet so leaving his friend Chris is a real loss - they can’t keep in touch and play their games online together as one might have expected. But once he has moved, Connor discovers he loves exploring in the woods behind the house and on one such exploration he is plunged into another, magical world. There he finds he has been expected and is sent off straight away with Medwin, the son of a tribal chief. They journey together to seek out the person who might have the answers Connor needs. Along the way they encounter hazards and friends - and Connor begins to discover he has a bit more magic in himself than he had realised.The story is in the same vein as ‘Narnia’ in that it is about a child, staying in an old house who finds a way into a mysterious fantasy land. I suspect it would appeal most to youngsters who are a couple of years below the age of Conner. It has some great messages about the importance of friendship and courage and the need to learn wisdom.The book’s strength is in its storytelling and characters. In Connor, the author has crafted for us a very believable teenager, shifting his moods abruptly from anger and resentment to awe and wonder. He is child enough to miss him mother and man enough to consider how much they will worry about him. He has courage, but is not given to bravado. He has humour and the beginnings of a sense of responsibility. 'As he bit into his steak, flavors unlike anything he had ever experienced overwhelmed his taste buds.'The story begins as a classic journey quest with the two teenagers bonding as they go, but it develops beyond that into something a bit deeper. It has a strong moral message, delivered quite gently, on a variety of issues from duty to family, through to environmental responsibility It is more a book for younger children than YA literature as it is an ‘all boys’ story and some of the moments of realisation Connor has, would, for a child, indeed be genuine revelations and things to think about.However, two things stood out as key issues for me in the book. Firstly the writing was patchy. As well as point of view confusion, repetition and strangely placed flashbacks, there was a lot of telling rather than immersive experiencing and that left me feeling detached. I wanted to know what the food tasted like, not just that it was something Connor had never experienced before. Was it slightly spicey? A bit sweet? Something smooth or harsh? This detachment lasted throughout the book and left me feeling as if I was never fully able to experience what Connor was going through."With their women gone, they won’t be able to reproduce, and the Satria will become a dead breed."Much more serious for me though, for a book aimed at this age group rather than an adult audience, is the question of the values it promotes. Although most of its moral message is really positive, some I could not agree with at all, but I fully accept there will be those who will see all these as positive values and that this is subjective criticism - very much my own opinion.Firstly, women only appear as passive - breeding stock even, as in the quote above - or evil, indeed for most of the book there are no women in the story at all. Connor’s mother is dependent upon his father and much of their conversation is about his father. Medwin’s mother, when we meet her, says nothing at all but silently obeys her son, and the strongest female character is an evil creature called a Mirthless. The girls their own age Connor and Medwin meet, seem to be there just to admire and dance with the boys. Connor comes to believe that it is wisdom to place ‘honor’ above his own life, the same tragic belief that has sent so many young men to die in pointless wars, attack someone for an insult or even to actively seek a cause they can convince themselves is worth dying for. And finally, I have to ask if it is ever right to perpetuate the idea that torture is admirable, even if the subject of it is evil, and that there are no moral dilemmas involved in mistreating one's enemies if they are seen as evil too? This is a real ‘Boy’s Own’ adventure story and a book that could be used to start some serious moral discussions with a youngster about some very fundamental values.