While the idea is excellent, its execution is somewhat lacking. Books like this seem to not get the illustrations and narrative balance right. It's a shame as it has great potential.

Where this book is good, is in the use of graphic novel styled images to create a sense of action and drama in some of the scenes. The plot and setting lend themselves to the graphic novel form and would feel familiar to readers who usually go for comics and graphic novels.

However, there just isn't enough of the graphic element to make this a success. The narrative ends up being slower than it needs to be and it becomes difficult to stay interested.

With more use of graphic and illustrated story telling this could have been an excellent book for getting reluctant readers more engaged and encourage more reading for children who steer away from text only books. Unfortunately, the sections of text here are way too long and the graphics too few and far between for it to really work in such a way. The end result is a book in which the best features are limited to a few pages with the rest feeling like an awful lot of filler.