The Train to Impossible Places
By P.G. Bell
Hi! Do you know anyone who can make sense of everything? It might even be yourself! Well, Suzy Smith can! She’s really good at physics and math and numbers and she can make sense of almost anything.
But one day, Suzy wakes up and doesn’t hear anything but has this feeling that something’s not right. Then she hears the clanging of pots and pans. At first she thought it was a burglar, but then she realized that burglars don’t make noise. She went down and realized that it was a troll and it was a hammering a railway gate right through her house. Then she realized that her house had grown much bigger. At first she thought that she had shrunk, but then she realized that the house had actually grown bigger. This is what got her: on the outside the house was normal-sized, but on the inside it was huge. And the troll that was building it started bragging and talking about himself. Suzy tried to get him to say more, but he wouldn’t say anything. So she stole his hammer-looking thing that the troll said he couldn’t do the job without.
Suddenly, a train came through. Suzy realized this was her one chance to see what else was out there in the world. She ran on the side of the railway tracks and jumped on the handle on the train. When she got inside, the postmaster (someone who delivers letters) almost called the headquarters to scramble her memory. But then she promised that she would deliver letters for the postmaster, Wilmont. Her first stop was an angry sorceress named Crepuscula. She delivered what looked like a snow globe to her. But then, the frog inside of the snow globe started talking. He asked Suzy to take him away with her. He said that the fate of all of the impossible places depended on it. So Suzy took him away. Crepuscula got angry that she had wasted time, so she took away 30 minutes of her life.
After Suzy got back in the train, Crepuscula realized that she had been robbed and the snow globe was gone. She reached out a giant shadow hand and tried to grab the train, but the train raced off right before Crepuscula could grab them.
Suzy’s next stop was underwater. She didn’t have a package to deliver, but Wilmont was being mysterious and said there was something that Suzy had to take. So she went down into the ocean with her scuba gear on and on the way, the frog told her his story. He said that he was the prince of the western fernlands and that he had overheard a plot to overthrow the kingdom. He had tried to tell people about it, but two of his most trusted bodyguards had thrown him in a sack and delivered him to Crepuscula.
But then Suzy realized that something didn’t fit. Suzy said that the whole reason she had rescued him was because he said that the fate of all of the impossible places depended on her, not AN impossible place. The frog (Frederick) told Suzy that she must just be imagining things, and so Suzy just went inside a house under the ocean. Inside the house, there were ghosts. But they weren’t creepy, scary ghosts – they were friendly ghosts. The captain tried to make the impression of speaking in a ghostly voice, but it turned out that ghosts just speak normally. They let it slip that there had been no princes for centuries in the western fernlands. And so, Suzy realized that Frederick had been lying to her.
What will happen? Will Frederick uncover the truth or will he keep on lying like he has been doing all along? As I always say, read the book to find out!
I recommend this book to readers who love action and adventure. This book was so good that once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor):
There were a few scary parts, but none were like “Ah, I have to go get my mom” scary.
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor):
One part where someone thought Suzy and Wilmont were boyfriend and girlfriend. But other than that, none.
I give this book 5 ½ wands.
I absolutely LOVED, LOVED it! Is there any more lovey word than love? Cause that’s how much I loved it! Otherwise, my review wouldn’t have been this long! I really loved this story about how an ordinary girl fought to save the world even though she didn’t have anything special about her.
Source: Review Copy
