Book Review: Will Solvit and the Deadly Gladiators
Date of Review: 30th May 2010
Review by: Will Roney
Interactivity is a key challenge for authors these days, especially in the world of children’s fiction where the distractions range from 24 hour TV to games consoles. However, as any reader will tell you, the pictures in your head are often better than the ones presented to you. And this is the case with the new range of books from Zed Storm.
He has created an Adventurer called Will Solvit who goes on a series of adventures which all start at the family home, Solvit Hall. He has a range of tools and gadgets that help him on his quests, ensuring that he gets back home safely.
Each of the six books in the range are written for an audience aged around the 7-10 years old and have amazing stories to tell. In his books Will and his friend Zoë encounter dinosaurs, mummies and in the first of the reviewed books, Romans. All of these stories are told via words, cartoons, fact pages and what seem to be unintelligible lined boxes. It is only when you use the supplied ‘Decoder’ that the mystery of the boxes is revealed. They open up clues and hidden detail to the adventure that Will and Zoë is on, enhancing the story and making the reader involved more in the story.
Ancient Rome is the setting for the first book, and in it Will dines with Julius Caesar and witnesses the thrill and spectacle of the Gladiators in the Ring. Getting there by his own personal time machine, and helped by a distant ancestor, Will learns enough about the Romans to help him with a tricky piece of homework.
For the second book, Will and Zoe go into space to save the Earth from a race of aliens called Parteks, who are distantly evolved from cats. There is plenty in this book to satisfy any boy or girl who is started to get interested in the idea of space, as well as providing a good story to hang it all on.
In the series of books, Zed Storm has reawakened the gadet-friendly, story monster in me. There is plenty for any reader to get their teeth into, and it is made all the better because you are encouraged to get involved and learn a little too. Read it, and you will never see a child’s book in the same light again.
TOTAL MARK 5/5
Book Review:
Will Solvit and the Deadly Gladiators, by Zed Storm.
Other books in the series:
