Title: Other Worlds 1: Perfect World

Author: George Ivanoff

Genre: Science Fiction, Children’s books

Publisher: Random House Australia/Penguin Random House

Published: 26th February 2018

Format: Paperback

Pages:192

Price: $14.99

Synopsis: Keagan finds a key . . .
It opens a doorway . . .
He steps through . . .

Into a weird world of clones who are obsessed with perfection. But this world isn’t as perfect as it seems. Keagan is determined to return home – all he has to do is find a way out of the city, survive the Dumping Ground and outsmart a bunch of rogue clones!

Will Keagan escape Perfect World?

The Other Worlds series: OTHER WORLDS

Find the key!
Open the doorway!
Enter the Other World! 

OTHER WORLDS is a new adventure series for kids aged 8 and up, with a sci-fi and fantasy flavour. It’s about mysterious keys that open doorways into other worlds. Each book is a stand-alone story with a new set of characters. But, for those who read the entire series, there’s also a thread running through the first three books that gets tied up in Book 4.

~*~

Keagan enjoys playing video games with his best friend, Ravi, reading and creating websites, but on the day his mum asks him to go and buy her some pickles while she is out, he stumbles across a shop called Matilda’s Collectibles, and he is drawn to it like a magnet – as though something within is summoning him to step inside and discover the miraculous things inside. What greets him is a dark and dingy store, complete with glass cabinet and a number of clichés he’s encountered in writing – including the strange old woman – Matilda. Within moments, he grabs a falling computer chip disguised as a key, and is transported into a sci-fi world from his computer games – Perfect World – were everything is perfect – five clones for each generation, and where the clones who have imperfections are sent to the Dumping Ground. Here, he is quarantined, studied and dumped through a garbage chute, where he meets Eone and the rest of the Refuse. He falls into a plot by one named Befour to start a revolution and take over Perfect World. Can Keagan stop Befour, teach the clones the lessons they need to learn and get home before his Mum notices he is missing?

This is another book I received from Scholastic to write a quiz for – and it is aimed at 8 years and older, up to upper primary. The first in a series of four, Perfect World explores ideas of perfection and imperfection, sameness and differences, and diversity. It is the kind of book that any child or reader can relate to and put themselves in Keagan’s shoes. A fun read, it encourages being yourself and not doing what everyone else does just to fit in – the clones of Perfect World are the antithesis of what Keagan believes but, in a world, where perfection and being the same goes so far, the generations speak in unison – which Keagan finds quite unnerving.

What I enjoyed about this book was that Keagan remained true to who he was, but at the same time, used his knowledge to translate his sense of self, and individuality into terms that the clones could understand – at least the ones not trying to take over things.

Keagan is the key to teaching the clones about diversity and friendship – and his relationship with Eone is quite adorable, as is their journey to discovering diversity, and divergence and enlightenment – and hopefully, this book will show kids that it is okay to be who you are and that you don’t have to fit in with the crowd.

I hope the kids who get to read this enjoy this book, and get as much out of it as I did.