“None of us who encounters evil is left unscathed . . . but you mustn’t cling to the terror or it will darken your days and cloud your future.”
Will Wilder gets himself into trouble at his brother’s birthday party acting like a normal 12-year-old boy – he thrusts his brother over a fence where he breaks his arm. For his punishment, he is sent to help a man at the local church with chores. He would rather work at the museum with his aunt, but a man who appears from the nearby river offers Will an interesting distraction. He wants Will to find the relic hidden away in the church so that he can heal his eye. Will senses an adventure and accepts the challenge.
A friend of mine recommended Will Wilder books to my middle grade children as a Catholic alternative to Rick Riordan books. One has read this book and the second in the series. With the third book coming out soon, I thought I should pick them up and start reading them, too.
Will learns a lot about right and wrong in The Relic of Perilous Falls. While he searches for the relic for the adventure of it, he soon realizes he is being caught between wanting to do something for a good reason but having it turn out to be the wrong choice in the end. Will also learns more about his own family history, faith and how precious life can be during his search for the relic.
Readers who enjoy Rick Riordan books will enjoy this series if they are Catholic. There are several references to Catholicism that many Protestants won’t get. I think the book is mainly written for boys and my daughter found the plot move too quickly in some parts and too slow in others. It is also a fantasy book based in the current time period, but all the fantasy is taken at face value. While I know there are many who will enjoy the series, it didn’t hook me in well enough to want to read the rest of the books. My daughter isn’t planning to either.