The Stonekeeper
Ratings72
Average rating3.7
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.
Pleasantly surprised at how dark the book was, considering its young audience.
Gorgeous Art and a good story.
Understand why its in the recommended graphic novels reading.
My sister introduced me to this series last year, and I managed to get the whole collection at a book fair. The story is 3 parts Studio Ghibli and 1 part H.P. Lovecraft. Great pacing, great art, great monsters. Also, I love a pink bunny that can also pilot a mecha.
I was very underwhelmed with this graphic novel. While the art was lovely I didn't care for the story line at all.
This was an incredibly fast read, maybe 30 minutes or so long. It's full of beautiful imagery, simple dialog, and surprises aplenty. Being something written for young adults, there's a lot of archetypes to be found: the chosen one, unknown and dangerous magics, and the deceased parent, however they all tie together very neatly and the story makes you care despite the genre-standard tropes.
If I had to pick one thing that this book does incredibly well, it's the action panels and how they create a fantastic sense of motion.
Having looked through some of the other Amulet books, I feel like this series gets much better. I like this one, but it's clearly just a start, just getting its footing. It seems a little simple right now. It starts out beautifully (and tragically), but then moves to the pretty clichéd, “We have to move into this broken-down house in the middle of nowhere, kids,” thing (à la Spiderwick, Coraline, um ... lots of horror movies), and then just as it starts to pick up again, it ends.
I was also disappointed because I love Kibuishi's environments - his cities and backgrounds and such - and this book was almost entirely devoid of them. I felt like the characters were interacting in a vacuum too often.
The house robot at the end, though, is just more proof that my faith in Kibuishi is justified, and I'm going to buy book 2 very, very soon.
I loved this book when I was younger and still do! This book gives me an overwhelming sense of nostalgia like with Percy Jackson. 10/10 would recommend.
Rereading the entire series (so far) in preparation for book 6. Still amazing on second read.
