Rating: 
Summary: A Fun, Harry-Potter .....
Review: When Jason Adrian is injured during soccer tryouts, he is devastated that he cannot go to soccer camp with his best friend. He was certain that he was doomed to spending summer eating Jell-O with his grandmother. But his English teacher unexpectedly comes to his rescue and he is off to Camp Ravenwyng. His overprotective stepmother cannot really find anything wrong with a camp for creative and imaginative students, so Jason finds himself on a funky little bus with a small group of kids and two weird-looking counselors. This bus ride is Jason's first tip-off that Ravenwyng isn't an ordinary camp - not when they suddenly went from nowhere to somewhere and night and day became totally confused in the process. Jason quickly finds that this is just the beginning. All of the children at camp were chosen because of their magicial potential and they are being trained to use that magic. As if that wasn't enough, he has to deal with a shape-shifting fellow camp kid, a disappearing best friend and a traitor in their midst. For he discovers that Camp Ravenwyng is the new battleground between the Camp Ravenwyng Magickers and their ancient enemy, the Dark Hand of Brennard and that a member of the Dark Hand is at camp plotting evil deeds...I resisted buying this book for quite some time because I thought it was a total Harry Potter .... and it both is and it isn't. Jason and Harry have many similarities: their age; they are both being raised by someone other than their parents: Harry an aunt/uncle, Jason a stepmother/stepfather; they both know nothing about magic until they go to school/camp; they both have two best friends: Hermoine/Bailey and Ron/Trent; a klutzy boy in camp: Neville Longbottom and Henry Squibb; they are both sorted into their areas: Harry by the sorting hat and Jason by the wishing well; both have weird scars: Harry the famous lighting bolt on his forehead and Jason a weird moon shaped scar on his hand; both are mysterious targets for evil beings; both have the power to work miraculous things and end up saving the day, etc. This is really too bad because once Susan Drake got past the whole "be as close to Harry Potter as possible without plagarizing" at the beginning of the book, she was able to create a delightful fantasy book. There are some differences, the main one being the way magic works and what it is used for. The evil characters are also different and include both animals and humans. There are also some unexpected surprises in the book. The book is well-written and the reader empathizes with the characters almost immediately. The plot is pretty fast paced and there are plenty of little details to keep the reader amused with sub-plots while they wait for the serious action to occur. If you enjoyed Harry Potter, you will like this book, but I still feel bad that she "borrowed" so many ideas from J.K. Rowling.
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