The Dark Giants

The Dark Giants
by Cerberus Jones
Recommended Ages: 10+

It's Amelia's birthday, and for the first time, she's allowed to invite her school friends Sophie F. and Sophie T. to her parents' hotel, and even to have Sophie T. stay overnight. Her main worries leading up to the party are that her best friend, Charlie the housekeeper's son, won't be nice to the girls, and that her alien dog, Grawk, has run away. Of course, keeping the fact that some of the hotel's guests are aliens from outer space, traveling via a wormhole to gateway at the bottom of the garden, is another concern. What she doesn't count on is for the night's festivities to be interrupted by an obnoxious alien scientist and his two hulking accomplices hunting for a feral alien beast. And when Sophie T. gets in the middle of it all, the circle of the gateway secret gets just a bit bigger.

It's a thin chapter book that takes only a little time to read, so I'm loath to extend my synopsis any further. It continues to be a fun series, full of fun kid attitude and the thrilling possibilities of having a gateway to anywhere in the universe in your backyard. Things are developing, too, like the relationships between Amelia, Charlie and Sophie T., the size and troublesomeness of a certain otherworldly puppy, and an ongoing plot arc involving a canister full of a mysterious substance that has been hidden at the hotel for many years.

This is the sixth of (so far) eight books in "The Gateway" series by the two- or three-headed Australian writing team of Chris Morphew, Rowan McAuley and (for the first six books) David Harding. I continue to read them out of order as copies of the installments trickle in via Thriftbooks; but they're coming close enough together that my enjoyment isn't hampered too much by knowing what happens two books later, or picking up hints about something I missed in a previous book that hasn't come yet. And finally, don't take Amazon's prices as gospel (e.g. at the link above); if you shop around, you may be able to find a better deal on these books, as I did.