Island of Lost Masks

Ryder Windham's Island of Lost Masks is an island adventure for 7 year olds where everyone wears a mask and losing yours means losing yourself.

What happens

Bingzak is cornered on a cliff path with skull spiders closing in from both sides. His village is already gone. He is about to jump when a blast of sand knocks the spiders off the edge.

The one who fired it is Nilkuu, Protector of Stone, a warrior Bingzak has only heard about in his dad's stories. Nilkuu is on his way to the Temple of Time and will not admit he is lost. Bingzak knows a shortcut.

What waits at the temple is all six Protectors of Okoto in one place, which has apparently never happened before. They put the Mask of Time in a pool of light and say the Prophecy of Heroes out loud. Then they go home and wait to see if anything happens.

Days later Bingzak spots a constellation he does not recognise. Six points of light. Moving.

The comets bring six heroes who land hard, remember nothing at all, and can fly and make tornadoes and cut through rock. Watching them work out what they are is the good bit. One of them lifts Nilkuu into the air by his armour and tells him to stop squirming.

The pace never lets up. Something is always being blasted, thrown or knocked off a wall, and the story moves on before anyone stops to explain the rules.

A word about the spiders, because what they do is nastier than simply chasing people. They clamp over a person's face and take their mask, and then that person is not themselves any more. Bingzak has one land on his head and he picks up a spear and turns on his own side, and it takes a shot from Nilkuu to get him back. Later a hand comes out of a wall and rips the mask off one of the heroes.

It is more unsettling than gory, and nothing is described in a nasty way. But a seven year old who worries about being taken over may find that idea sticks around after bedtime.

What to read next

If what your reader wants is more of the same, a monster at a time and a map to follow, Beast Quest has a whole shelf of it. Sepron the Sea Serpent puts a boy called Tom on the west road with a wolf, a horse and a map that comes to life when he unrolls it.