A literary first…

Public punster puts pages

in the hands of a reviewer.

Ron Dennis recently published his first children’s book and now faces the pen of a fellow scribe.  A review of this first effort follows.

Review by Eric Kohanik

The classic literary battle of good vs. evil is not new.

Neither is the embodiment of that theme in a fresh-faced young hero squaring off against a craggy, demonic villain. Nor is it a surprise that distant family ties would somehow be involved in setting the stage for the ultimate showdown.

We see all those elements in Adventures in Shroomville: The Mystery of Hedgehog Hill, a children’s/young adults’ novel penned by former daily journalist Ron Dennis.

You may already have had a peek at Shroomville. The Hamilton Spectator and other newspapers serialized chapters of the fantasy novel earlier this year as part of the Newspapers in Education program to help cultivate young readers.

Shroomville follows the saga of young Marshall Shroom, a kid who seems destined to tread in the footsteps of his dad as Town Constable of Shroomville, an unorthodox little village nestled deep in a boreal forest. On his 13th birthday, young Mars gets the telepathic call to follow his destiny, so he sets out to track down and rescue his missing father and best friend, a young girl named Portia Bella.

The clever adventure has twists, but Dennis refrains from making his tale too complex. This is a quick and easy read, tailored to stimulate and stretch the imaginations of the young and young-at-heart. And its quirky slate of characters will likely evoke more than a passing chuckle along the way with their assorted, pun-filled names.

Adventures in Shroomville: The Mystery of Hedgehog Hill, by Ron Dennis (Manor House Publishing; $14.95 CDN / $12.95 US)  Available at Chapters/Indigo on Brant Street in Burlington.

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2 comments to A literary first…

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