The Search for Wondla

This book reminded me of the Star Wars movies. Strange aliens and flora on another planet.

Twelve-year-old Eva Nine has been raised underground and has never seen the surface of her planet. Her mother is a robot, named Muthr, who has been training her in survival methods. When their home is attacked and Eva is forced to the surface she and Muthr realize that all that training didn't prepare them for a world of alien creatures and plants. Eva meets Rovender, a blue creature, who helps her survive and Otto, a water bear, that she can communicate with telepathically. The foursome set off on an adventure to find if there are any more humans left in the world. They are pursued by Besteel, the hunter, who captures rare artifacts or creatures for the queen's museum. Besteel is hunting them to free his brother but we never know his side of the story. Eva is a strong female character.

The story is full of action and fast-paced. It would not be easy creating characters that have a relationship when one is a giant bug, a machine, an alien, and a human but the author manages to do this. The author changes the voices of the characters to fit their beings. The water bea,r which looks like a giant bug, speaks simply with one word at a time, not sentences. The robot sounds like a dictionary. The Halcyonus put plurals on words randomly in their sentences. For instance, "Anyone's we know?" p 236

The theme of nature and how living creatures are interconnected runs throughout the story. The queen shows her prejudice toward those different but in this story it is the human who is the unusual creature. The adventure has violence throughout but I felt slightly removed from it because they were made-up creatures.

Reading Level 7.5

:-) :-) :-) :-) 4 Smileys