Cameron Battle and the Hidden Kingdoms

Jamar J. Perry's Cameron Battle and the Hidden Kingdoms is a fantasy adventure for 9 year olds about a boy whose family storybook turns out to be a door.

What happens

Cameron has just finished sixth grade in Atlanta, and summer isn't behaving like summer. It's been raining for a month. There was snow last week, and Grandma keeps staring out of the kitchen window like she's waiting for something. Then lightning cracks the pavement outside their house and a shadowy figure comes after him. Cam could swear it said "book".

The book is The Book of Chidani. It's been in the Battle family for centuries, and it's full of pictures of a hidden kingdom of the Igbo people, with gryphons and gods and Queen Ramala on her throne. Cam's mum used to read it to him in the attic. But since he lost his parents two years ago, Grandma has kept the attic locked.

Who hasn't been told NOT to go in the attic? At a rainy sleepover with his two best mates, Zion and Aliyah, a key turns up in the hallway glowing blue. The pictures start moving. New words write themselves across a blank page.

Cam tells the story himself, and the friendship is the best part. Zion is scared of everything and comes along anyway ("I'm always scared. Never stopped me before"). Aliyah is the new girl who's joined their crew and knows how to pick a lock. They tease each other constantly, and you can feel how much they need each other.

There's real sadness in it too. Cam misses his mum and dad badly, and there's a dream of his last night with them that's very tender.

A few things to know before you hand it over. His parents' deaths are backstory, set out plainly in the first chapter, and grief runs right through the book. The family history of the Book includes ancestors kidnapped and carried across the ocean in slave ships, told briefly but honestly. And the shadowy creatures, spirits of the dead called mmo, are properly scary. Cam and his friends have just finished sixth grade, and it reads like a book for confident readers.

For a child who loves big myths and a hero who looks like them, it could be a very special find.

What to read next

If they're hooked, try Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky. Tristan is grieving too, for his best friend, and the journal he's left with glows in a way nobody else can see. It's full of the stories his nana told, John Henry and Brer Rabbit among them, and they're about to become real.