The Stonekeeper

7/10

This is a great middle grades read. I grabbed this for my 4th grader to read and he sat down and finished it in one sitting and told me I had to read it too so we could talk about it. It's a little on the scary side though! Immediately put a hold on volumes 2 and 3 at the library.

I bought this book for my brother because I am on a mission to get that boy to like reading and I am perfectly content if all he likes to read is graphic novels because half the time that's what I read. I discovered Amulet in the bookstore read the very sad prologue, made a note to put it on my TBR list and when I came back to the bookstore bought it. I didn't buy it for me but I of course got to read it first while my little brother was at flag football practice.

In the prologue Emily and her parents are in the car on their way to pick up her brother Navin who is at a friend's house, it's dark and has been snowing and unfortunately the truck approaching them has its high beams on. Emily's dad can't see a thing which almost causes him to crash into a car parked on the side of the road, quickly swerving to avoid it the family drive off the road and down a hill to the edge of a cliff. In the end Emily and her mom were able to get out but her dad who was trapped went over the edge with the car. Didn't I say the prologue was sad? But still that's what got me to continue reading because within the first few pages of the story such strong emotions were pulled out of me for characters I had just met. It's interesting though, my friend had said this to me one day when we were watching a movie, why do they always start with a car accident? I supposed it's because car accidents are such a common occurrence that happen everyday so it's not far-fetched to have one happen in a story, its also not hard to orchestrate one, anything can cause an accident really.

We immediately move to two years later, another car but mom is driving and Emily is older and we see her younger brother Navin for the first time. The mood is mostly solemn and we find out that the family is moving to a small town far away and Emily isn't too excited about the move or with going to school (who uses algebra in the real world anyway?). Their new home screams horror movie with boarded up windows, no lighting, and dust covered floors but that doesn't deter the new residents because they attack the new home with cleaning gusto.

Of course the strange house has a strange room which belonged to Emily and Navin's great grandfather Silas who disappeared years ago. There is also something else in that room that only we the readers get to see that have its dark creepy eyes on our protagonist which I'm sure has something to do with the stone amulet Emily discovered.

That same night the story propels itself forward the moment everyone hears a noise in the basement and the mother is swallowed whole by a giant creature. Now no longer in their old world Emily and Navin have to save their mom and lucky for them the Amulet talks and is quite helpful.

This first volume was a fast paced adventure that was just dark enough in all the right places. Still, there is obviously a lot more to find out because this book also felt like the setup for the series. A lot of new characters were introduced both good and bad and the longer Emily wears the Amulet the deeper she pulls herself and her family into things as her brother would say and that doesn't look like a good thing.