Neverseen: Keeper of the Lost Cities, Book 4 by Shannon Messenger

Rating: Needs Parent Supervision

Reading Level: Late Elementary, Middle School

Sophie continues to wrestle with her identity and with her superpower capabilities. This one goes really deep into weird psychological mind searching, supernatural powers to search minds, heal minds, etc. Also, there is more of the problematic worldview that says “follow your heart” and “just do what you think is right,” but at least this time the parents are supportive and involved in the decision.

Possible Concerns:

• Letting your heart be your guide because you don’t trust authority anymore. The Bible says the heart is deceptive. At least in this book the kids are more considerate of authority.
• Intimacy. The main character develops intimacy with boys that is inappropriate out of courtship and marriage. The adults pair Sophie with a boy and they are supposed to share deep secrets to develop trust and intimacy. Another boy and Sophie are alone together a lot. Another boy is her “best friend.”
• Naked statues. The kids go to Italy. Immature boys comment on not needing to see their “stuff.”
• Threads of Pantheism. Overly admiring nature. There is talk of nature healing itself…
• Girl talk/Crushes. There is a still some talk about crushes, boys, and fluttering hearts.
• Environmental agenda. They believe letting animals go extinct (including dinosaurs) disrupts the planet.
• Telepathy/ Mental Superpowers. This one continues deeper into reading minds, transmitting messages and inflicting pain and love. There is a lot of talk of energy and weird fantasy stuff to do with searching and healing minds.
• Body humor. There are jokes about poop, etc.
• Fantasy. Alicorns, goblins, elves….

Things I liked

• Parent chaperone. The kids go rogue and a parent “stowaway” goes with them. It models a positive parent who is supportive and is invited in their lives.
• Pro-Life. There is a conversation about how the elves count their birthday starting from inception, not birth.
• Self Sacrifice. a character gives her life to save her friends as a sacrifice.

Some middle grade/ middle school readers who enjoy fantasy could read books 1-4 without being too deeply harmed by them, as long as the reader knows that (1) All the mental telepathy stuff is fantasy, and (2) Christians operate from a different worldview: Our authority and morality comes from God and following our heart as it submits to the will of God, not from “following our heart” in a worldly sense that doesn’t acknowledge an authority outside of our feelings and our limited knowledge.

See my reviews of other books in the series.