Truth be told I’m much more a vampire person than a zombie
person. I don’t really know why. Well, the whole flesh falling off is just a
bit too much. With that said, the buzz
recently has been about Boys of Blue
by N.D. Wilson. I really enjoyed Mr. Wilson’s
100 Cupboards series so I decided to
give it a try.
Charlie moves to a very small town in Traper, Florida with
his mom, sister, and stepfather. They originally come to Traper to attend the
funeral of the beloved high school football coach. Charlie’s step-dad was a pro football
player. Traper is not your ordinary
small town. It is close to the
everglades where kids chase rabbits and try to out run the sugarcanes that have
been set on fire. This alone would set
it off from other small towns, but Charlie soon discovers that strange things
happen in the swamps.
As soon as Charlie arrives he befriends Cotton. Cotton is a distant step cousin of
Charlie. Charlie, also, discovers that
his deadbeat biological father lives in the next town. Rereading this I expect to hear “And like
sand through the hour glass, so are…”. It really isn’t that type of book.
The boys quickly find themselves engaged in something
unnatural in the everglades. They get to
the point where every decision could mean life or death.
N.D. Wilson has a way of sucking in the reader. The laundry can wait, the weeds will be there
tomorrow, and the books accrue an even larger fine from the library, but once I
started Boys of Blur I was hooked. I
remember as a kid meeting someone and forming an instant connection like what
happens to Charlie and Cotton. There
were times where I felt the book was very creepy, but in a good creepy
way. The natural flow of the book made
everything fit together and not forced.
The reading level is 4th grade, but I would be
careful. In my opinion it is end of 4th
grade or to 7th grade, but one I will quickly recommend to boys I
know.
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