As this is Memorial Day, I want to take a moment to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

And now I will turn the blog over to my son, who no longer needs an intro.

First of all, my mom is going to put middle schooler review instead of sixth grader review because we realized that I’m not going to stay in sixth grade forever, the school year is already over, so… yeah. That’s that. Also, is it correct grammar to say schooler? Is that even a word? Anyway… when my mom asked me to do a series review, I thought “What even is a series review”–and I still don’t know. But, I’m going to give it my best shot and please let me know if you liked it, or, even better, tell me how to do a real one.

So, the series I read was the Balance Keepers series by Lindsay Cummings. It is a trilogy that I really enjoyed and had a great time with. All three of them took me about four days to read; they were that good. It is about this wonderful world full of mystery and magic. These books are for everyone. If you like animals, there are magical companion creatures. If you like magic, well, I’ve kind of said magic over and over again, so there you go! If you love adventure, then this book is absolutely perfect for you! And, if you want a book with great friendships and character change, then this book has that too. And if you like all of that, like I do, then you need to stop whatever you’re reading and buy or check this book out from the library right now! Stop reading this, and read these books. The setting is at the core of the Earth, which is the gateway to the realms underneath the Earth’s crust that help balance what is happening on the surface. Here are some of the things I liked about the series:

1. Well, what I said above: the animals, magic (:there’s that word again:), adventure, and friendships and character change. They all are relevant and put new, cool things into the story.
2. The villain. At first you don’t realize there is a villain. But throughout the series… They start to reveal themselves…
3. Its plot. The plot is complex, but in a good way.
4. The entire series. What I mean by this is the end. You can look back at the entire series and think “That really makes sense now” and “Ohhhh… I get that now!” It just has a great ending.

So, now I am going to include individual book reviews for the books. I have them separate so that you don’t see any spoilers. Well, I’m not going to give spoilers, but if you read the 2nd book review before you read the 1st book, then it might accidentally spoil it for you. Also, I don’t want to overload you or myself, so these reviews are mini reviews and not complete full-sized reviews.

When Albert Flynn follows a mysterious map deep into the woods, and then under the woods, he discovers he’s a Balance Keeper—someone with special magical skills for keeping harmony in fantastical underground worlds. Together with his teammates Leroy and Birdie, Albert must master his magical talents in time to stop the fires in the Calderon Realm from destroying New York City above.

The first book is amazing. At first, it seems like the character is a regular character, and the town is a regular town, but as the story progresses… Suddenly Albert, the main character, gets invited to a whole new world full of wonder and magic. I really am using the word magic a lot. When he gets to the Core, he gets to pick a tile. These tiles grant the user special powers and can only be used by that person. Albert gets a tile unlike any other, a tile that can do anything if he needs it to, but requires extreme concentration to wield. This will help him on all his journeys. Oh! Remember those realms I told you about? Well… there are three of them. Calderon, Ponderay, and Belltroll. These realms keep the world stable. But… when these realms go out of balance or something happens to them, then it affects the world above too. So, of course, when Albert happens to go down there, discover some new friends, and get a pet dog named Farnsworth that he loves, an imbalance happens. While Albert is new to the realms, and other more experienced people can come and stop this, Albert and his friends Birdie and Leroy get chosen because they prove themselves in the pit. The Pit is the training grounds for balance keepers. I will let you figure out exactly what happened on your own, but this is the overview of what happened.

Albert Flynn is psyched to return to the Core, the magical world at the center of the earth where Balance Keepers fix problems in three underground Realms. Last term, Albert and his Balance Keeper teammates Birdie and Leroy saved New York by fixing the Calderon Realm and were crowned First Unit, aka the Coolest Kids in the Core.

Now Albert and his teammates have been called to the Core for an emergency training session…along with their archenemy, Hoyt. There’s a horrible Imbalance in the Ponderay Realm and they have only seven days before California will be swallowed by hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Worse yet, it’s rumored there’s a traitor among them who is causing all this chaos.

Will Albert, Leroy, and Birdie discover who’s been putting the Core—and the world above—in danger? Can they save Ponderay before California becomes an underwater wasteland forever?

Now that you already went back and read the first one (Just Kidding-You don’t have to read it yet, if you need some more convincing, maybe the promise of these sequels will have you read them) let’s get on to the second one. The Pillars of Ponderay gets even better. Albert, Birdie, and Leroy are called back in an emergency to the core to train for Ponderay in the case they have to go in and fix it. However, Argon, the team who are their arch-nemesis, is there as well. Let me elaborate on Argon. Argon was another team that was competing in the pit to go into Calderon. And they were doing really good and winning. But when Albert and his team (called Hydra) beat them, team Argon was upset and they were never nice to each other since. So this would be like the last book except now, they are on a time limit of 7 days. They have little time and, worse, team Argon is beating them over and over in the pit. They have one last shot in the pit to win and go into Ponderay-and Argon gets confused as Hydra wins. So Hydra is feeling sure of themselves as they prepare to go into Ponderay. But then it was decided that as the second best, Argon would go with Hydra too. You see, even though Calderon was basically on fire all the time, Ponderay is more of a physical, energy sapping realm. While they go into Ponderay and start solving the imbalance, other things start to happen… Stay tuned for Book #3! Well, they do go to the surface, but it’s better for me to explain what happened during my overview of book 3.

Albert and his Balance Keepers teammates have been called back to the Core for immediate action! There’s a serious Imbalance in the fantastical underground Realm of Belltroll, and without intervention everything from New York to Yellowstone above could be swallowed by earthquakes. It’s clear the mysterious traitor who caused last term’s chaos is at it again, and with a vengeance.

Albert’s super-magical Master Tile helped fix the Ponderay and Calderon Realms in previous terms, but now it seems the Tile may be more trouble than it’s worth. Because if it’s Albert’s Tile the traitor is after, there will have to be a battle sooner or later, and only one of them can win…

So, if you’ve been reading the book description, you will find something very important that was mentioned in the book 2 and 3 descriptions. If you haven’t read them go back and read them now… it’s fine I’m writing this before you’re going to read it so when you do read it, it won’t matter to me… Alright. You found it? There is a traitor involved! So, there is a traitor. This traitor has been behind the scenes causing the imbalances and wants to steal the master tile to harness the power for himself. Also, as you can imagine, the traitor has gotten pretty mad that none of his earlier traps in the imbalances have worked, so he is truly putting everything he can to kill Albert and take the tile for himself. When the traitor kidnaps his friends to lure Albert in, Albert actually beats him! So, there is the Balance Keepers Series.

Wow! When I asked my son to write a series review, I had no idea he’d go into this much detail, but he sure made me want to read this series! (I actually did read the first book years ago, so it would be more accurate to say he’s made me want to go back and read the rest.)

He’s committed to write a review every week this summer, and as he said, we’ve decided we’ll now call these middle schooler reviews (Merriam-Webster confirms it’s a word) since he finished sixth grade last week. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!