Diamond Boy Versus The Heartlight Saga

So I liked both of these books, but I generally do like all the books we choose.  Diamond Boy is based in Zimbabwe and revolves around the immoral diamond mines of Africa, in particular the Marange mines. I use lots of realistic fiction in  my grade 9 Language Arts classes and this book title will be added to my list of novels for sure.  The narrator, Patson who is high school, leaves his town to follow a promise of riches in the diamond mines run by his step-mothers brother.  Right from the start it becomes evident that the world Patson and his father, sister and step-mother are entering is not what they had been told awaited them.  I connected with the struggles and injustices of the characters worlds, and the unlikely hero's that turn up in hideous times of humanity.  When the use of land mines enters the story I was not expecting it.  I loved this book and it is simply written in terms of vocabulary so I could see many reluctant junior high boys loving this book.

The Heartlight Saga, is the first novella in a series of 3.  It is fantasy, based in science and not the usual novel I love to read.  Yet I had trouble putting it down.  The idea of a famous astrophysicist spending his whole life learning how to seperate our "PCL" or "Pure Condensed Light' from our bodies to allow for time travel was intriguing.  Then to know that travelling into a different dimensions leaves a portal open for spirit beings from another plane gets frightening.  Tie it all together with the importance of butterfly's to transport our "PCL" and I was hooked.  The writing and vocabulary was more sophisticated than Diamond Boy, and I believe only my strong readers would enjoy the novel.  But I really, really did love it and kept wanting to read to see how could this world be plausible.

The winner for this round is The Heartlight Saga by T.A. Barron.  I am still buying a copy of Diamond Boy for my classroom asap!