6th grade and up. I love Royce Buckingham! This is the perfect middle school level fantasy book for boys. In the tiny town of Sumas, Washington, one mile from the Canadian border, 12-year-old troublemaker Sam avoids going home to his abusive, alcoholic father. Because he's wandering around a lot, he tends to spend quite a bit of time with Sumas's lone cop, Officer Myrmidon. Sam steals some fireworks and gets placed in the jail cell for a bit, where he meets Officer Myrmidon's 17-year-old son, PJ. Left at the station while his father goes out on a call, PJ decides to go investigate a border sensor reading -- taking Sam with him and "borrowing" a police car to do it. At the border they accidentally run over... not a smuggler, but a goblin from the underworld. Goblins are nasty, furry, revoltingly smelly creatures with enough intelligence to copy, but not enough to invent. The medieval-looking Guardians of the underworld appear just in time to "remove" the threat to human kind, but Sam manages to slip past them down the tunnel to go investigate things for himself. He's discovered and captured by the Goblin General Eww-Yuk and his not-so-bright soldiers: Bargle, Slurp, Ugly, Slouch, and Brains. PJ joins the Guardians to rescue Sam, and chaos ensues! Lots of general grossness (slime, gas and poop jokes, etc) and adolescent humor:"Arrrgh! What is it, Brains?" Eww-yuk grinned. "Human child," Brains said. "Male."... "Have you talked to it?" Eww-yuk asked. "Yes," Bargle said. "It barks the words 'screw' and 'off' over and over." ( )

Eigentlich ganz spannend geschrieben. Teilweise fand ich es etwas zu detailreich beschrieben. ( )

What makes a good book for teen boys? How do you get a reluctant reader invested in a story? Which factors will entice the most challenging reading student to pick up a book?

With Goblins!: An UnderEarth Adventure, author Royce Buckingham has answered some of these dilemmas.

He begins with an action-filled opener – a goblin has escaped the UnderEarth. He features identifiable protagonists - twelve-year-old Sam on the brink of juvenile delinquency and seventeen-year-old PJ, stuck in a nowhere small-town while he visits his policeman father. These two form an unlikely, but appreciable, dynamic duo as they follow the Guardians of UnderEarth on a battle to keep the goblins from finding the tunnel that leads to our world.

Additionally, author Buckingham, propels the reader from one battle scene to the next. Goblins! action not only begins fast, it is spooned out in small doses. Chapters are kept short and descriptive language is limited. There are bloody battle scenes, bravery and death. Still, before the story ever gets a chance to venture into a weighty realm, the author throws in a few laughs.

And though the telling might flow easily and prove enticing to even the most reluctant of readers, Goblins! hides some decent themes within it. PJ and Sam demonstrate fortitude and make the right choices when making the right choices count most.

Goblins!: An UnderEarth Adventure, aimed toward the middle-grade male – even though the cover art appears to be too juvenile for that crowd, is a story many reluctant and action-adventure story enthusiasts will devour.

Review first published on Reading Rumpus ( )

Goblins! by Royce Buckingham has been some of the most fun 200-some pages of reading I’ve had in a while. The characters are normal, average teens who are called upon to act in extraordinary ways to save each other and to protect their world from the goblins of the UnderEarth.

One of the things I like about this book is that there are no 100% evil bad guys in the book, they’re a mix of good and bad. While PJ would prefer to stay out of things, he chooses to step up and take responsibility for his actions and for Sam, who was left in his care by his father. Sam wants adventure, and bites off a lot more than he can chew, but nevertheless manages to prove he has a heart of a warrior. The goblins have silly, descriptive names like “General Eww-Yuk,” “Slurp,” “Slouch,” “Thick,” etc, enjoy eating humans, fighting, humans as well as each other, are dumber than a bag of hammers, yet they are extremely inquisitive and quick to learn and adapt.

Another thing that I liked about Goblins! is that the writing is simple, the details are just enough to make things easy to picture but not so thick that it bogs you down. At times it reminds me of The Spiderwick Chronicles, and at other times Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Besides having a highly imaginative setting and great actions scenes, including 7 foot bugs-versus-human battles, it also has a great sense of humor. It is a book with teenagers as the heroes and main characters, so the surliness and sarcasm of the age often shines through. For instance: When Sam is brought before General Eww-yuk by the goblin Bargle

“Have you talked to it?” Eww-yuk asked.

“Yes,” Bargle said. “It barks the words ’screw’ and ‘off’ … over and over.”

-Goblins! An UnderEarth Adventure by Royce Buckingham, page 71

I think this book is ideal for the tweenage-early teen years, 9-14, and probably more for boys than girls, though I think Mags will enjoy and laugh at it. I’d also like to warn that this book does contain the deaths of central characters that readers may get attached to, so if your reader is potentially sensitive to this, then you might want to wait.

For being one of the most enjoyable, reality-suspending, relaxing books I’ve read in a long time, a book that wasn’t teaching the reader or delivering a message (if it was, I didn’t notice at all), a book that was just like losing 25 years and being on the playground again…

Click for full review: http://thekoolaidmom.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/goblins-an-underearth-adventure-by... ( )