Review: Middleworld by J & P Voelkel

Middleworld by Jon & Pamela Voelkel

Fourteen-year-old Max Murphy is looking forward to a family vacation. But his parents, both archaeologists and Maya experts, announce a change in plan. They must leave immediately for a dig in the tiny Central American country of San Xavier. Max will go to summer camp. Max is furious. When he's mysteriously summoned to San Xavier, he thinks they've had a change of heart. Upon his arrival, Max's wild adventure in the tropical rainforests of San Xavier begins. During his journey, he will unlock ancient secrets and meet strangers who are connected to him in ways he could never have imagined. For fate has delivered a challenge of epic proportions to this pampered teenager. Can Max rescue his parents from the Maya Underworld and save the world from the Lords of Death, who now control the power of the Jaguar Stones in their villainous hands? The scene is set for a roller-coaster ride of suspense and terror, as the good guys and the bad guys face off against a background of haunted temples, zombie armies, and even human sacrifice!

I wanted to like this book. I really did. And I think the plot shows a lot of promise, I just don’t think the execution matched the concept.  The main character, Max, annoyed me with his materialism, whining and sniveling, right up to the point of his sudden, inevitable conversion into a decent person. I know he’s a teenager and teenagers are generally moody and materialistic, but it was like the Voelkels used every possible teenage stereotype to accentuate his transformation later on. I really couldn’t get into the rest of the characters either as they mostly seemed like stock characters inserted to fulfill a plot function, like the foreign maid who speaks little English, the estranged uncle who may or may not be one of the good guys and the spunky native girl guide who teases Max mercilessly.

It’s clear that the authors did a lot of research on the ancient Maya because they put a lot of detail into the story. Really, an overwhelming amount of detail. I liked the dramatis personae at the beginning of the book and the glossary at the end, which help you remember the characters and absorb some of the denser information dumps in the text but with those included a lot of those info dumps aren’t really needed, unless the authors are trying to impress upon the reader just how much research they’ve done. It’s really great that they have researched the ancient Maya to such an extent, but not all of it needs to be in the book.

I know Middleworld is intended for kids between 8 and 12, not for adults.  I do think kids of that age will enjoy this book, but I think even they will see it’s not as good a book as it could be. It’s easy to say “it’s just a kids’ book,” but I think that’s a cop out. There are lots of very well written books for this age group that don’t resort to storytelling shorthand and an overuse of similes.

I thought about the review I would write on Middleworld as I was reading it, trying to keep in mind the audience the book is aimed at, thinking I might be too harsh since it is “just” a children’s book, so I compared it to one of my perennial favorites (that I reread on occasion, even as an adult) Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which is also an 8-12 book and a Newberry Medal winner. It may sound like I’m comparing apples to oranges here, but they’re both adventure stories with lots of dialog and exposition, so I don’t really think they’re worlds apart. To say nothing of the talking animals! Mrs. Frisby explains concepts with enough detail for children to get the gist of them in the context of the story without being overbearing. Any ideas I didn’t fully understand and needed to know more about, I either asked my parents or looked them up in the library. I think the wealth of information in Middleworld‘s glossary would be better utilized if it were a supplemental source for the main text rather than restating what’s already in the book. Middleworld could also have benefited from tighter writing and editing. Children’s books don’t have to be sloppily constructed just because they’re for kids.

As I said in the beginning, I really wanted to like Middleworld. And I very nearly did. The basic plot shows real promise at being a spellbinding adventure story that would grip all ages. Sadly, the execution could have had a lot more trimming and polishing and the overall effect is a book with great potential that fell far short.