Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: The Gatekeepers
The second thrilling, chilling installment in Anthony Horowitz's bestselling Gatekeepers series.
Matt thought his troubles were over when he closed Raven's Gate . . . but in fact they were just beginning. His fate -- and the fate of the world -- is tied to four other kids across the globe. The second is a street kid in Peru. He and Matt have never met; they don't even speak the same language. But destiny is going to throw them together as the evil threat of the Old Ones grows . . . and another Gate suddenly comes into play.
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Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Born in 1956 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a family of wealth and status, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs. His father, a wealthy businessman, was, says Mr. Horowitz, "a fixer for Harold Wilson." What that means exactly is unclear -- "My father was a very secretive man," he says-- so an aura of suspicion and mystery surrounds both the word and the man. As unlikely as it might seem, Anthony's father, threatened with bankruptcy, withdrew all of his money from Swiss bank accounts in Zurich and deposited it in another account under a false name and then promptly died. His mother searched unsuccessfully for years in attempt to find the money, but it was never found. That too shaped Anthony's view of things. Today he says, "I think the only thing to do with money is spend it." His mother, whom he adored, eccentrically gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. His grandmother, another Dickensian character, was mean-spirited and malevolent, a destructive force in his life. She was, he says, "a truly evil person", his first and worst arch villain. "My sister and I danced on her grave when she died," he now recalls. A miserably unhappy and overweight child, Anthony had nowhere to turn for solace. "Family meals," he recalls, "had calories running into the thousands&. I was an astoundingly large, round child&." At the age of eight he was sent off to boarding school, a standard practice of the times and class in which he was raised. While being away from home came as an enormous relief, the school itself, Orley Farm, was a grand guignol horror with a headmaster who flogged the boys till they bled. "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." To relieve his misery and that of the other boys, he not unsurprisingly made up tales of astounding revenge and retribution.
Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. He writes in a comfortable shed in his garden for up to ten hours per day. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he has also written episodes of several popular TV crime series, including Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. He has written a television series Foyle's War, which recently aired in the United States, and he has written the libretto of a Broadway musical adapted from Dr. Seuss's book, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. His film script The Gathering has just finished production. And&oh yes&there are more Alex Rider novels in the works. Anthony has also written the Diamond Brothers series.
This review is from: The Gatekeepers #2: Evil Star (Paperback)
The second book of the Gatekeeper series "Evil Star" is about a boy named Matt Freeman who has special powers. The bad thing is he can't control them. He first noticed them when he was 5 and his parents died. Matt knew his parents were going to die because he saw it in a dream. Now he lives with his friend Richard Cole. Matt is one of the five kids who have to save the world from creatures called The Old Ones. He gets sent on a mission to Peru by a secret organization called the Nexus, to find one of the gates that release the Old Ones.
Matt has these dreams where he sees three boys and one girl on a beach. He is on a rock in the water. When Matt goes to Peru he starts getting shot at and almost gets captured like his friend Richard did. He meets a boy named Pedro who is one of the five chosen to save the world. Pedro speaks Spanish and they can only understand each other in their dreams. They go all around Peru trying to find Richard and finally find him in a place called Cuzco. They meet the ancestors of the Incas and they help them along their way.
They go to Nazca, where there are the Nazca lines. These are a series of lines that were dug to look like animals and other pictures. They meet a woman who has been studying the lines for her whole life. Her name is Professor Chambers. She thinks that on a day called Inti Raymi the stars are going to line up with the pictures and that alignment will open the gate. There is a man named Salamanda who is going to use a artificial star to open the gate. Matt isn't going to let that happen.
I really liked this book because it has a lot of action and the author used a lot of description to explain what is happening in the book. I recommend this for kids in their teens that enjoy action, adventure and suspense. The main characters in some of his books are around 13-14 years old. I have read two book in this series and four books in a different series by the same author. I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series.
By Brian Williams
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5.0 out of 5 starsSplendid book and a real page turner, September 26, 2009
A Kid's Review
This review is from: The Gatekeepers #2: Evil Star (Paperback)
The second book in the Gatekeepers series is one of the best books I have ever read. After reading the first book I thought it couldnt get any better, but after reading this one I was obviously wrong. Another Horowitz is a great writer and makes you want to keep reading more. This book is enjoyable, intense, and has a great ending.
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