Review – Quest for the Spark Volume 1 by Jeff Smith and Thomas Sniegoski (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Middle Grade
Genre: Fantasy
Size: 224 pages
Publisher: GRAPHIX
Release Date: February 1, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0545141024
Stand Alone or Series: Quest for the Spark Vol 1
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars

This is the first book in the Quest for the Spark trilogy. This is a chapter book with some pictures that picks up some time after the events in Jeff Smith’s Bone graphic novel series. I enjoyed it and loved revisiting some of the characters from the Bone series.

Tom is a twelve year old turnip farmer who is suddenly plagued by bad dreams after he finds a strange rock. He ends up discovering that it is up to him to assemble an unlikely group of heroes and go on a quest to recover the light-giving spark. In his dreams Tom sees that The Nacht (a horrible empty darkness) is trying to penetrate through to the waking world. It is up to Tom and our other heroes to find the Spark and stop the Nacht.

This was a fun adventure fantasy. I enjoyed all the quirky characters and liked some of the full color pictures throughout. The book is put together in a very nice way with lots of color and very nice heavy paper. The idea of the Nacht reminds a lot of the Nothing from the movie the Neverending Story; it’s a very similar premise.

The story is pretty predictable but still an engaging read. You switch between the different POVs of all of our heroes as you read the story. This worked very well for this story and gave us a good chance to get to know our heroes.

Thorn is in the story a very small bit, as is Grandma Ben. The majority of the other character are new to the series…or are characters that were mentioned in passing in the original Bone series.

Overall this was a fun extension of the Bone graphic novel series. Although I didn’t like this book quite as much as the original Bone series I still really enjoyed it. It’s fun to revisit this world and I love the adventures that Tom and crew go on. I will definitely be continuing this series. I would recommend to fans of middle grade fantasy adventure and, of course, fans of the original Bone series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge