Midnight for Charlie Bone

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As I read, I made many connections to the Harry Potter series, as well as Dianna Wynne Jones' The Chronicles of Chrestomanci. We have a young boy who discovers a strange power. He is whisked away to a strange school, where he is expected to hone his skills. However, the rules of this school are foreign and make life very difficult, as do the plethora of strange and interesting students. However, in all cases, our main character makes it through their first year. Hypnotize the Captive: Essentially what Harken does to Amy Bone in the fifth book, to ensure that Lyell doesn't wake up from his trance. Corrupt the Cutie: In the third book, Yolanda does this to Dorcas Loom, to turn her to the side of the bad endowed. Olivia also has this done to her in the final book by Titania Tilpin, after the Bloors discover her illusionist powers. She gets better eventually, with a lot of help from Emma and Alice Angel. Time is running actually out for Charli . Charlie hopes that a new term at The Bloor’s Academy won’t hold nasty surprises. However, Henry Yewbeam appears after being twisted through the time from the icy winters of 1916. With scheming Yewbeam aunts on prowl and the Bloors fully out to catch him, Henry will require Charlie Bone’s help so as to stay alive. The Bloor’s Academy can be an extremely dangerous place .

At the very end, I willingly said 'Goodbye! And GOOD RIDDANCE!' to Grandma Bone/Grizelda, Venetia, Lucretia, Eustacia, Titania Tilpin/Mrs Tilpin/Miss Chrystal, Ezekiel and company. And I UNwillingly said 'bye :(' to the series. It's finished and it was great. Stupid Scientist: Ezekiel has shades of this, crossed with Genre Blindness. He literally had no other plan for controlling Borlath except that since he was Borlath's descendant, he'd of course be obligated to help him out. Now first let me get this out of the way. A lot of people think Charlie Bone is a downright rip-off of Harry Potter. I'm here to tell you that No, it is not. In fact it is very different. YES it does have a character who finds out he has a magical ability, and YES he gets sent to a school/academy where other children have these magical powers (although the majority of the children at the school don't have powers, and the powers don't involve wands and brooms). That's about all that is similar to Harry Potter in this series, and I find it sad how people won't give this series a try because of that. A "magical school" shouldn't be left only for Harry Potter, I believe it can be used in many different ways so that the idea never feels the same. And this is coming from a Harry Potter fan.Chronic Hero Syndrome: Both Charlie and his father have this to some degree. Both can't stand by and do nothing when they see someone who needs their help. Timoken (aka The Red King) is the same, shown when he rescues Beri, Edern, Gereint, Peredur, Mabon and others from slavers in The Secret Kingdom. He also rode around the countryside as a knight defending his people after the grieving period for his wife was over. Olivia goes through this in Castle of Mirrors, when she goes into denial about being an endowed child of the Red King. In the end she accepts that she is endowed, though she feels more resigned to it than anything else.

Hero with Bad Publicity: Christopher Crowquill was framed for robbery by the Bloors and sent to jail for seven years. After he gets out, he comments that the only person who still stood by him even though he was a criminal was Alice Angel.Killed Off for Real: In addition to Christopher Crowquill in Castle of Mirrors and Mr. Pike, Big Bad Manfred and his grandfather Ezekiel die at the end of the last book. I love that Charlie has Benjamin as a friend, and I love how loyal Charlie is toward Benjamin and his dog, Runner Bean. Also: a dog named Runner Bean- what a fantastic little detail to include in a story! I think that having poor, lonely Benjamin in the story really opens up the audience- many readers can relate to either having a friend such as Benjamin, whose parents are frequently away working, or they can relate directly to Benjamin. Billy Raven - Bloor's Academy student, starts off as Charlie's friend, endowed with the ability to understand and communicate with animals. Bad Powers, Bad People: This almost seems to be the case when it comes to the endowed. Those with more destructive powers tend to be on the side of the Bloors, while those with more useless-sounding powers tend to be good. This is averted by Tancred and Lysander, who are easily the strongest of all the kids at the Academy, and who are both very firmly on Charlie's team. However, as an adult, I can't say that this was an exceptional read. The plot was extremely stilted and jumpy, the characters were flat and totally underdeveloped, and the writing was-excluding the fact that this is indeed a middle grade fiction- waaaaay too juvenile. I could honestly believe that this was just a really long children's book, if the author had decided to include pictures. The sentence structure reminded me of those books for tiny children (toddlers?) that used simple rhyming words such as "cat", "bat", or "hat" to teach the english language.