Books for Christian Girls: "Operation Bungaree" by J.D. Peabody

About this book:

  “Mystery and danger abound in book three of The Inkwell Chronicles, a fast-paced middle-grade fantasy series about magic ink, a secret society, and a boy who learns to make his mark.
    In Operation Bungaree, the third and final book in The Inkwell Chronicles, Everett and his little sister Bea find themselves drawn even more deeply into the secret world of the Inklings, those who seek to protect the world's rapidly diminishing supply of magic Ink. Everett, separated from the group in an improbable, perilous predicament, fights to find his way home. Meanwhile, Bea and the other Inklings search desperately for ways to help him, as increasingly clever enemy operatives close in from all sides. With time and Ink dwindling, will Everett find his way back home? Fans of The Silver Arrow, The Bookwanderers, and Inkheart will love this classic battle of good and evil that pits creativity against the forces that would seek to blot it out for good.”

Series: Book #3 in “The Inkwell Chronicles”. Review of Book #1 Here! and Book #2 Here!

Spiritual Content- A few Scriptures are mentioned & remembered; A couple hymns are played; Everett & his family live in a vicarage as his father (Marcus) is a Reverend; Everett recalls his father’s sermon on the Israelites wandering the desert for forty years (which he can’t recall the lesson his dad drew from the Bible story); Bea recalls her father giving a sermon about the lost sheep (which made her happy that the little lamb was rescued); Everett remembers a Scripture about “turning to the left or to the right” and how his father added “You know, Ev, at times there is no right path until you take a first step. You never see the trail when you’re the one blazing it.”; Bea tells someone that she is still talking to Everett in case he can hear her & saying her prayers every night, but doesn’t understand why nothing is working; Towards the end, Marcus is angry with God for not answering his prayers & yells at the sky; Mentions of hymns (Marcus plays many in hopes that Everett can hear them); Mentions of churches/cathedrals & church going; Mentions of an abbey/nunnery (which has an invisible building the Inklings created to avoid the Blotters); A few mentions of those & events in the Bible; A few mentions of prayers, praying, & saying prayers; A mention of a Sunday service & homily;
             *Note: The special Ink in this story is what is behind all the greatest creative works (stories, paintings, music, etc.), that it unlocks someone creativity when used (also said to be the source of all the stories where good triumphs over evil); Some people can use Ink to heal others’ injuries (by applying it) and it’s mentioned a few times; Ink is used in multiple ways, mainly for someone to draw something (typically in the air) to help them on their mission; Those that use Ink are called “Inklings”; Bea hears the Ink tell her that Everett is okay because he did “Leap Reading” into the comic book page; “Leap Reading” is when Everett focuses on a page and is able to go into the book (introduced in Book #2); An adult says that an “outside force” must have orchestrated those events where Everett is willed into the stories; Someone gives Bea and a friend an “Inkourager” which are two halves of a whole that you can send good wishes or a “positive sensation” to the other; One new character says that rescuing a soul (in this case, Everett’s) is a battle & that they fight with Ink rather than fire; A side character, Marigold, an Elemental Fomentori who is connected to the earth, went into dormancy in Book #2 and in this book, Bea plants her seedpod into the ground which makes a tree grow very fast (Bea goes to talk to her often; *Spoiler* Towards the end, Marigold comes out of hibernation and later turns herself back into a tree to anchor someone during a storm *End of Spoiler*); Because of her connection to nature, Marigold is able to feel the earth and if there is Ink hidden underground (including hearing from the ground if they can take the Ink or not); Other Fomentori are introduced including a grizzly bear, a harp that can play itself, and other humans; Someone refers to a cord of three strands (recognizing it as a Scripture) and says that three of the Fomentori characters are those strands for their mission to bring Everett back; A side character says that love is “the most powerful force in the universe”; *Spoiler* Everett sees a spark that turns into a physical form of his father’s muse, which is Everett’s late mother with wings and he is sad to leave her to go back to everyone else *End of Spoiler*; “Blotters” are the villains in this story who are creatures that have inhuman eyes, despise the Ink (since they hate all that is good and creative, they called it “the Stink” and their pupils change once they smell it), and some of them have batlike wings between their shoulder blades and can fly; Blotters and other creatures cannot enter into a house of worship as that is a safe place for those trying to flee from them (if they enter, they will instantly become gargoyles); The villains have created a new type of Ink called “Inkanto” which changes people’s personalities and brings out the worst in them or corrupts an item; Inkanto is also used to wake up “swamp dragons” the villains have & un-freeze Blotters that were touched by Ink (up to semi-detailed); A side character learns how to do “The Loud Quiet” which harms Blotters’ ears, but wears the musician out; Blotters use “Mind Murk” to makes humans not see their true appearance and forget about seeing them; A Blotter sends his shadow into the church to plant a listening device by sending his shadow with the device into the building (up to semi-detailed); Blotters use “fire crystals” to communicate with each other (by throwing these crystals into a fire, they can then see the blotter they wish to talk to; Done once on-page); Everett uses the “dowsing sticks” to find his way (He uses them on-page by touching “the ends of his sticks together for any indication of which way to go. They pulled Everett directly into a wall.”; Book #1’s spoiler tells more about these sticks; A villain calls them the “Witching Sticks”); A side character uses a hair from his mustache as a way to connect to Ink (energy) Waves and uses it to create a storm; A side character thinks that Everett could have fell into a portal to another universe; A sea monster argues and grounds his disrespectful son; Bea asks someone if her old book is a “book of spells” (because she likes magic tricks; it is not); A few mentions of “Pinches” in the universe that “could bring far-apart places closer together”; A few mentions of people going through different dimensions when traveling; A couple mentions of “magic” items; A couple mentions of Martin Luther; A mention of prehistoric fossils.

Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘dumb’ and two ‘bah’s; A few mentions of curses (by villains, said, not written); Some eye rolling & Sarcasm (mostly by villains); Almost being taken by a villain, Being threatened, Pain, Passing out, & Being stuck in quick-sand-like Inkanto (up to semi-detailed); This book starts right after the ending of Book #2 where Everett falls into a volcano (the villains are glad about it as it’s one less Inkling they have to deal with, but Bea and the others are very upset; Bea, however, knows that Everett went into a comic book page and they are all determined to rescue him; *Spoiler* A villain gets ahold of the page and burns it, which makes Bea sob hysterically, but Everett is protected by Ink in the page *End of Spoiler*); Everett feels relieved that he “cheated death once again”, but is concerned that he won’t find his way home, will starve to death, sobs with sadness, gets very angry, & has some negative thoughts because of the Inkanto (which tells him that he isn’t worth caring about and is a failure); *Spoiler* Towards the end, Everett is threatened by the main villain and told that if he follows him, the villain will save him (Everett feels as if there are spiders skittering across his brain when the villain touches him and it’s implied the villain can read his mind; Everett has an urge to take the villain’s hand, but does not *End of Spoiler*); The villains in this series are fine with harming and killing Inklings (including our main characters which are children); The villains threaten harm, withhold needed Inkanto, push and hit, and are mean and belittling to each other (It’s said that Blotters are backstabbers and self-serving); One of the Blotters hates the Inklings and wants revenge on the one that caused him to cut off his foot; A villain’s minion threatens to harm others for him; A villain tries to do a heist and grab a hostage, but it doesn’t work out for him; A side character struggles with continuously remembering seeing Everett being pushed into the volcano; Two minions of the villains accidentally push their boss (who was turned into stone) into the ocean (another sees this and compliments them, but they correct him and get their boss back); Marcus (Everett and Bea’s father) has lost weight and is under a stress with what has happened to Everett (Bea catches him crying at one point and he has a weight of grief on him); Everett thinks of his father’s negative view on pinball machines as he considers them a “negative influence linked to gambling halls” (Everett thinks that some of his friends who play pinball do not seem to have ill effects, but when he gets sucked into playing, he realizes the dangers of it being addicting); A sea monster argues with and grounds his son (on-page arguing and disrespect); Mentions of grief & the passing of a loved one; Mentions of a ferryman who takes “dearly departed blotters” to “the other side”/”the netherworld” (which he calls the “rubbish heap in the far reaches of [his] cave”); Mentions of pain & passing out; Mentions of fires; Mentions of stealing, stolen items, & thieves; Mentions of prisons & arrests; Mentions of eavesdropping; Mentions of a wine bottle; A few mentions of wars/battles; A few mentions of fights & fighting; A couple mentions of crimes; A couple mentions of blackmail; A couple mentions of lies & lying; A couple mentions of nightmares; A couple mentions of pies & smoking; A mention of a villain’s breath having the “scent of death” in it;
             *Note: Everett has a bit of PTSD (not named) when falling because it brings back memories of other times he nearly fell to his death; Mentions of writes, books, & fictional characters (such as Euripides, Archytas, Edgar Allen Poe, ‘The Door in the Wall’, ‘Peter and Wendy’, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, & Winnie-the-Pooh); Mentions of songs (‘O Danny Boy’and ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ by Bing Crosby); A few mentions of Sophie Germain and how she couldn’t “pursue the career she wanted because society at the time considered a woman’s work to be in the kitchen, not in academia.”; A few mentions of brand names (Cartier, Dior, and Tiffany & Co.).

Sexual Content- Bea is excited to be told a story that has an engagement because she’s “always eager for details when it came to romance”; A side character has an obvious crush on another (they both blush); A mention of a sweetheart in a song.

-Bea
-Everett, age 12 (?)
                P.O.V. switches between him, Bea, & others (including villains and their minions)
                                           Set in 1953
                                                        352 pages

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Early High School Teens-

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My personal Rating-

As I started this book, I did have a time trying to remember who everyone is! Some backstory would have been nice, but if you binge read these books it can be nice that there’s no catch-up in the way. But a little explanation would have been nice too for those who had some time in-between books. I was able to pick up on the details of past events as this third book continued, but it definitely would be best to read them back-to-back.

The family aspect and how tight knit the three Drakes are is probably my favorite thing about this series. It’s really shown in this book especially, as they try hard to get Everett back.

This is going to be a series that some Christian families will really like and some may avoid because of the magic and items in this fictional world. Me? I’m a little undecided. I like the middle-grade whimsy charm of this series, but I’ll admit to not loving all the magical content. I think if a family is okay with broad magic/fantasy content then this series may be okay for them. I didn’t care for a couple comments/suggestions towards the end about three special characters (called Fomentori) as the three strands of a cord that they need to save Everett. I understand where they were coming from, but it felt disrespectful to the Scripture.

It sounds like this is the final book in the series, which is a bit disappointing as it’s left very open ended. That’s not a bad thing—particularly if there isn’t any more books coming out, but it would have been nice to have a few more of the villains truly defeated.

See y’all on Friday with a new review!