Book Review: The 4midables: How They Came to Be
THE 4MIDABLES: HOW THEY CAME TO BE by Don Young
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When a former writer for the Inspector Gadget television series decides to write a novel, you can bet it’s going to be full of gadgetry, right? Author Don Young’s The 4midables: How They Came to Be certain does had gadgets galore.
But he doesn’t lean on clever devices alone. This story showcases four teenagers, each with their own unique abilities and talents. 17 year old Madison is the star of the school soccer team, while her brother Ethan is a nerdy 16 year old with a talent for inventing. Throughout the course of their adventures, they’ll team up with a couple of 18 year olds: Maya, a computer genius in India with some well-kept secrets, and Rafael, a police cadet in Spain.
How on earth do four teenagers in three countries team up for adventures and still make it home in time for dinner? That’s where the most important gadget of all comes in. Madison and Ethan’s dad is a molecular physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center who wants to spend more time with his wife, a professor at Stanford University. So, he does what any brilliant physicist would do, right? He invents a teleporting device that’s easy to use, safe… and needs to be kept a secret. Of course, the kids find out about it and, because they are kids, they exploit it. There’s plenty of sneaking around the world when the parents aren’t looking, because of course there is!
But these are fundamentally good kids with hearts as big as their brains. When bad people start committing crimes that their kind natures just can’t put up with, the foursome grows determined to figure out how to use this amazing new technology to fight back.
Teenage readers will love the foursome’s personalities and energy. Parents may even notice that their kids are becoming smarter as they read. They’ll be learning a lot about science, nature, our planet, how time zones work, currency differences, space flight history, sports legend role models, and even experience a variety of different cultures and traditional foods.
Subtler messages are lightly threaded through the plot on the themes of money management, alcohol use, social media, truthfulness (including a need to tell ‘little white lies’ that remains unresolved at the end of this book), and more.
This is Don Young’s debut novel, though he’s certainly no stranger to writing exciting adventures for young people, thanks to his work in television and movies. Now he’s eager to create positive role models and learning experiences through this innovative new book series.
I may be all grown up (though that’s very hard for me to accept), but I thoroughly enjoyed traveling the world with these four energetic, idealistic kids. I’m looking forward to more adventures in the next installment!
You can learn more about each of the kids, this series, and the author at The 4midables official website: the4midables.com
Lori Alden Holuta
Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of Mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables and herbs when she’s not writing, editing, or playing games with a cat named Chives.
