Book Review- Kingdom Keepers 4: Power Play

This review does NOT contain plot spoilers.

When you're reading Kingdom Keepers 4: Power Play, I advise you to keep reading, right through the very end, playing close attention to the novel's final pages. Not that you'll want to put the novel down, mind you. For, the 4th installment in Ridley Pearson's enormously popular series is far and away the best yet. But it is that final page revelation, just a simple line spoken by a well known character, that changes everything.
It's one of those subliminal moments in literary series that make you sit up straight and read the line over and over again. In that moment Pearson lifts the dramatic stakes in the series to a level that completely blurs the line between fact and fiction, and makes you question, for the very first time in the series, just how much of this story is truly made up.

Cover Art for KK4

This payoff, however, wouldn't matter if it weren't set up well, and Pearson finally gets a chance to show off his skills as a writer, taking the series, for the first time, beyond the realm of just entertaining, but repetitive, action and chase scenes. Tackling issues of loyalty, friendship, and yes, adolescence (the main characters are teenagers, after all), Pearson finally gets time to explore and establish more of the Keepers' individual personalities. Despite establishing each member of the team as an individual, with their own strengths and weaknesses, the common thread running through all 5 principle characters is the strength of their bond of friendship, which is repeatedly tested in this book. Just how strong is the bond, and how well does Pearson depict it? One of the novel's best lines is delivered by one character's mother, who says, "If I was a kid again, I would want you all as my friend."

Comparisons are sure to be abound between this series and another series with a young male protagonist battling evil. And while Pearson is no J.K. Rowling, he capably transports readers to the world (err, World) of Disney after hours where, as one would expect, anything is possible. At this point in the series, characters coming to life is old hat, so Pearson needed to come up with a way to up the stakes. And he does, superbly. This time, the Overtakers are infiltrating people and places the Keepers previously thought "safe"- their school, their friends, and so on. This opens the door for issues of trust and betrayal to be explored, heavy territory for a series where trust was always implicit.

Fans of the series won't be disappointed, as Pearson still writes plenty of action, and there are still plenty of characters, both good and bad to satisfy the readers. For the first time, the Keepers learn they're not alone in defending all that is good about Disney, and several "good" Disney characters arrive on the scene to help, most notably everyone's favorite dog, Pluto, who Pearson deftly uses as a metaphor for loyalty. The gigantic elephant in the room- one particular character's very conspicuous absence in the series-is finally addressed and serves as one part of the setup for the next book in the series. Also welcome is the return of the Grand Mistress of Evil herself whose absence for most of the third novel was one of the reasons that book never really got off the ground.

Ridley Pearson himself.

Disney fans will love the way Pearson accurately describes the park's, down to the minute details, including the park layouts, closing times, and even the exact location of backstage entrances. Fans will also delight in Pearson's descriptions of the backstage areas, though given how notoriously secretive and protective Disney is of them, one wonders how much dramatic license Pearson had to take when writing about them.

Beyond all that, what makes the books most worth it for any Disney fan, young or old, is Pearson's unabashed love of the "magic" of Disney, and his firm belief that defending that magic is a matter of national security. Pearson, in the novel, while describing that magic, provides the best defense any adult has at why Disney has the hold over them it does. Cynics probably still won't be convinced. I can already hear the- "they're kids books!" comments, but Pearson isn't writing this novel for cynics. He's writing it for the believers, for those who do understand the importance of the magic, and who would eagerly join the fight if asked.