The Pillar of Light Review

The Pillar of Light by Anna Travis is a Christian middle grade fantasy book. This is the first book of the Milana Legends series. It is about a young girl named Nani who woke up at a small missionary hospital in the mountains of the Brazilian jungle without any memories. Three years later when a group of 6 young teens come to help fix the roof at the mission, she gets the only clue from her past (a necklace) from her “mom”. Then an accident transports Nani and all the kids to another world and they are set on a journey of navigating this new world while trying to unravel Nani’s past.

I found this book nice enough but I only gave it a 2.5 out of 5 stars. The story is interesting and pretty well done. I was intrigued about what was happening, about this new world and what Nani would have to go through. The world building was pretty good and quite thorough and I enjoyed learning about it. Overall the story is a quick and easy read (under 200 pages with a simple writing style). But the plot really is the highlight of the book and we don’t even get full resolution by the end. Nani still doesn’t have her memories back, we don’t know if the others will be able to return to Earth, and they have only completed the very first step on what looks to be quite a long journey ahead.

I am sad to say the characters felt kind of two dimensional to me, instead of like real people. We learn facts about them, but it doesn’t feel like we really get to know them. They lacked the depth that would have enhanced the story and there was minimal (if any) character development. I know this is only the first book in this series, but I expect to see complex, well developed characters who change and grow through the circumstances we see them go through in every book of a series (not just through the series as a whole). I don’t think that the intended young audience makes a difference on this issue; young people (9-14 years old) can still appreciate and enjoy depth of character.

Then there is the issue of the children learning some things too quickly. I don’t mind with the language (they explain that in the story decently), but with things like weaponry I just don’t approve of. Learning skills like that takes a great deal of time and practice. It’s not something you can just pick up in a couple weeks and children should not have these kinds of expectations if they set out to learn any skill for themselves.

As for it being “Christian” fiction. It doesn’t really have much touching on the subject. Nani’s ‘sort of’ adoptive parents in Brazil are missionaries, but it doesn’t really mention anything about the faith (with the exception of one obscure reference to Peter). There were some allegorical elements, but that covered one very small portion of one chapter. I found the lack of faith material a little disappointing, especially as the other kids could show so much (like prayer for example) as they were supposedly there on a missions trip.

Overall it was pleasant enough to read and I might be interested in reading the second book to see if it improves, but I don’t know yet. I’m not sure if it will be worth it.