EXCERPTS FROM AN UNKNOWN GUIDEBOOK

This installment of Bastian’s middle-grade fantasy series features teens with special abilities determined to stop sinister forces from building an army of darkness.

Wendy Perrault, after traveling through an interdimensional portal, is back in her own time. She’s a “Folkteller,” a magical teller of stories tasked with helping others via narrative inspiration, complete with her own Guidebook, just like the ones that all Folktellers carry. Someone, unfortunately, has murdered the librarian who would have mentored Wendy in her new storytelling ability. While trying to decipher a puzzling message from the late librarian, Wendy teams up with schoolmate Eddie Little Bear. The two stumble across the nefarious Shadow People’s scheme to use portals to unite all their kind into an unstoppable army. Meanwhile, Folkteller Aaron Anderson, Wendy’s friend from another time, wields a remarkable new power that allows him to create stories for the Guidebooks. But this ability puts him in grave danger, since using the power incapacitates him and leaves him vulnerable to the Shadow People’s attack. It’s up to his non-Folkteller best friend, Jake Perez, to hop through a portal to recover a particular Guidebook and safeguard Aaron before it’s too late. In contrast to the Aaron-centric series opener Phases of the Moon (2021), Bastian’s follow-up shifts much of its focus to Wendy. The story smoothly alternates between dimensions as Wendy tries to solve riddlelike messages that pop up in the Guidebook and Jake unhesitatingly helps Aaron, despite the apparent risks of dimension-traveling. Vibrant metaphors and similes enliven the pages; complications involving interdimensional portals make Jake feel as if his “brain was in the final spin cycle of a washing machine,” while a disoriented Wendy has “limp, overcooked noodles” for arms. Although readers know only what the teens know about Folktelling, this sequel reveals a bit more about the youngsters’ capabilities and the astonishing Guidebooks. McEvoy’s stellar artwork once again shines, replete with instantly recognizable character traits (such as Wendy’s glasses and Eddie’s braids) and superb facial expressions, especially one villain’s gleefully malevolent grins.

An impressive narrative pace propels this grim but entertaining supernatural tale.