🤷‍♂️Cameron Battle and the Hidden Kingdoms (2022)

By Jamar J. Perry

4Rbooks 3/6                   grades          6-8

Amazon 4.6/5               grade level   3-6

Goodreads                                     3.84/5          

Common Sense Media 3/5                  age 9+

307 pages

Synopsis

            400 years ago slavers were patrolling the west coast of Africa capturing African from all nations and tribes, including the Igbo. Their queen, Ramala, made a deal with the gods for protection. They would isolate the Igbo from the rest of the world and the Igbo would pray and worship them, eternally. Ramala’s sister Amina disagreed with this decision and tried to fight it. Before everything was destroyed, one of the gods, Agbala, used her power to create a magical book with the entire history of the Igbo.  The Book of Chidani was given to the enslaved people to remind them of their history and provide a way to come home when the time was right.

             That book is now in the hands of Cameron Battle, though his grandma restricts his access.  One night, with his friends Zion and Aliyah, Cameron opens the book and a portal is created sending him and his friends to Chidani. There they meet queen Ramala and agree to help her retrieve three gifts from the gods which will help her defeat Amina and save the Igbo.

            The three friends undergo intensive training and then begin their journey, aided by three of Ramala’s best soldiers and their personal gryphons (a creature that has the body of a lion and the face and wings of an eagle). They only have a few months to find the three gifts and save the kingdom.

Parental Guidelines:    medium-high 

It’s a story based on African mythology with gods and demons interacting with humans.

There is a lot of violent fighting with fairly graphic injuries and destruction. Children are in danger and contemplate whether they will return home alive.

Discussions of the slave trade and side comments that things haven’t improved.

The relationship between Cameron and Zion is very close and deeper than a traditional brotherly or familial care and concern.

Recommendation

   As I was reading this story, I was very curious where the relationship between Cameron and Zion was heading.  They were very close emotionally, and at times, physically, more than normal for 12-year-old boys.  I kept waiting for some “revelation” that would indicate the agenda of the author. A part of me wanted to appreciate that they weren’t afraid to show their feelings, but something didn’t feel right.

While a “revelation” never came, when I was reading the acknowledgments, the author did throw in a shoutout to “queer Black boys/men, I love you, I hear you, I see you.  Thank you for standing with me through this justice journey.” It makes me think the author’s purpose, besides sharing African mythology, is to provide an instance where the queer boys are the heroes.  I looked up other books by the same author and they are LGTBQ oriented.

So, while this book isn’t necessarily an LGTBQ children’s book, the underlying tone and message of the author definitely leans that way.  The story itself is a decent action adventure that relies heavily on the dark aspects of the magical and supernatural. It’s more Voldemort than Harry Potter.

As such, it falls into the “meh” category.  I can’t recommend it, but I won’t warn anyone off the book either.