Book Review: Gray Locke The Witch of Clover Hill

I was telling someone about this book the other day, and after I told them the title, Gray Locke: The Witch of Clover Hill they started talking about how popular the Harry Potter books were and how great they are for kids. I kept saying, yeah - but witches don't exist because in Gray Locke's world, witches don't exist.  Seriously, they don't.

I read this book with my 6 year old son and he LOVED it and has asked me to read it to him again, which I will happily oblige as I really enjoyed the book too.  This is a book about a young boy who is very smart and very reality based. But that doesn't mean he isn't interested in things. He has quite a great imagination this kid.  In fact, he's a lot like my son. As we were reading it we kept saying, - wow - that's just like you. Everything from drinking ovaltine in the morning to playing with LEGOs.

As a Humanist parent, I liked the book because it shows just how much better the world is when you abandon your fears of the unknown and just go ahead and find out what the truth is. At it's heart, this book is a mystery and don't let the fact it is reality based fool, you, there is plenty of mystery there to sort out. You simply don't have to abandon reality to have a great supernatural mystery to solve.

My only complaint was that the book ended too soon. Gray Locke is a character I want to follow and get to know better as does my son. Fortunately, author C.A. Chicoine's has promised to follow Locke through out his childhood into his adult years so, C.A. get on that please!

Oh, and one last thing, C.A. is kind enough to provide links to various reality based details of his story and he provides the rules for two different marble games that are played in the book, and yes, my son and I are planning to play both games over the weekend!  It really is a great book and you will enjoy it.