It is my stop today for The Remembering blog tour.

My stop takes the form of a book review.

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Title: The Remembering

Written by: Dione Orrom

Cover Illustration by: Ramona Ring

Published by: Troubador

Blurb

From the darkness… came a call from the trees. Deep in the soul of the world a being is growing, feeding on the destruction of the natural world. The Forgetting is seeping through the Rings of Time, bringing dark rain, poisoned mists, and deep fractures in the earth. The Rings are nearing collapse, the Ancient Tree Council needs help.

Escaping the torment of his neighbours, the twins, Jack runs to the woods and the Ancient Tree Council see their chance, Jack is their hope. They ask him and his scruffy dog Stan to undertake a dangerous journey to help restore balance, to bring about a remembering. To Jacks horror, the trees mistakenly bring Mia, one of the twins and their lives are entwined in a way they could never have anticipated.

The adventure takes them beyond their wildest imaginings, meeting wise elders, facing tempestuous primal worlds, turbulent rivers, and a mighty storm – with near tragic consequences. Discovering strength, friendship, belonging and hope. A thrilling adventure to the heart of the earth.

The main protagonist Jack is bullied by his neighbours, the twins Tom and Mia, because he prefers nature and the great outdoors to being cooped up playing computer games. He is also mourning the loss of his father who inspired his love of nature. One day when he is escaping what he believes to be the twins following him in the woods he decides to hide in a hollow of a tree and is sucked into a parallel world where the trees and animals can talk and they are on the run from The Forgetting.

Jack manages to get home and decides to return the next day when he is followed by Mia. I enjoyed seeing the friendship between Jack and Mia develop, providing them with satisfying story arcs. I did find it rather frustrating random characters kept popping up telling Jack the answers to his questions about the new world, rather than him discovering them for himself through exploration and determination. This created too many characters and I felt most of them could have been absorbed into Aster, Wolf and Taxus the Tree Elder, who were strong well-round characters we could root for.

I liked the way all the set up was there in the first chapter so we could dive straight into the story – introducing the reader to the main character Jack, his grief, his dog Stan, the bullies and the inciting incident where he is transported to the other world. This is all achieved quickly and concisely, which was great so the reader is immediately pulled into the story.

The Remembering has a great premise in how The Forgetting is feeding off the destruction of the natural world. The protect the environment theme is cleverly executed showing how deforestation and pollution has a knock on effect on the animals, eco-system and the climate. Overall though, I felt other aspects of the story could do with a little more of this showing rather than telling. For example rather than Jack saying he is scared show it by his reactions and feelings and rather than simply saying the people were busy around the campfire show us what they were doing.

A fun magical adventure for middle grade with an important environmental message and a percentage of all the profits are donated to three charities: The Tree Sisters, The Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute and Trees for Cities.

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About the Author

Dione Orrom is an Emmy winning and Grammy nominated film and television producer, specialising in arts films and documentaries. Living in harmony and balance with nature is central to Dione’s life, having followed the path of shamanism since her late 20’s.

She is also a trained shamanic energy medicine practitioner. Dione is passionate about tree planting, foraging, growing food, and protecting the natural world – believing that we and nature are one.

I would like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Through My Letterbox for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.

To follow the rest of the tour check out the schedule: