Emba Oak and the Terrible tomorrows
Emba Oak and the Terrible Tomorrows
Author: Jenny Moore
Published by: Maverick Publishing
‘All the best adventures start with a knock at the door…’
I collect opening lines to stories and this one is just wonderful, building anticipation for an amazing adventure and drawing on memories of a huge wealth of literary adventures that have come before! It does not disappoint!
A prophecy, a crack in the sky, a dragon, a girl with scales, a kidnap, a true friend and guide, a long journey, magic, multiple perils, an evil sorcerer… this book has all the ingredients of an incredible quest story that will have you on the edge of your seat and also chuckling with the clever humour woven into the narrative.
After she sees a huge crack in the sky and comes face to face with a dragon, Emba’s protector ‘Fred’, the Wise Hermit of Witchingford Wood, reveals the ‘fiery’ secret of her past, and with it, the mortal danger she is in. When Fred, the only Mother she has known, is kidnapped by the evil necromancer, Ember and her friend Odolf (a hero in training) journey to rescue her, finding out about themselves and what it is to show true bravery along the way.
I loved the world building right from the start and the clearly defined character roles – the reluctant heroine discovering her power and the well-meaning but slightly bumbling friend, prone to ‘putting his foot in it!’
Jenny Moore’s pacey storytelling and the short chapters would make this a great read aloud in the classroom and I’ll absolutely be recommending it to my Year 5/6 class this week too.
There is so much that feels familiar about this book in terms of the characters, settings and plot arc of a traditional quest tale, something that is played on in the narrative itself, and that was something I really enjoyed – fresh but familiar! It made it an easy and comfortable read, which was just what I needed. Reading for pleasure at its best!
If you wanted to use it as a teaching text then here's some ideas to get you started:
The opening sentence ~ think of other adventures that start like this. Discuss who might be knocking and why this makes such a good opener to an adventure.
Use the opening line as the start of their own stories.
World building ~ Jenny Moore builds a world very like ours but with new plants, creatures and characters. Use this model to create other settings and describe them.
Use the book as an example of the problem resolution, problem, resolution model often found in a quest story. There are other features too such as the presence of a guide in Odolf.
Discuss dragons and their mythology and predict what role they will have to play in the sequels.