Peril in the Palace by Marianne Hering and Paul McCusker - REVIEWED

About the Book: (from the publisher)
The place? China in 1271. The quest? The golden tablet of Kublai Khan. The problem? Just about everything!

The Imagination Station adventures continue as cousins Patrick and Beth are kidnapped by Mongol warriors. Only the friendship of fellow traveler Marco Polo saves them from harm. They are brought to the Mongol palace, where the Kublai Khan dislikes both their gifts and their message about Christianity. The tension grows when the Mongol magicians challenge the cousins to a spiritual power showdown. As war breaks out, Beth and Patrick are locked in a secret room to prevent their escape.

How do the cousins get the golden tablet they need to save Mr. Whittaker’s friend Albert? How do they escape the city and find the Imagination Station? Enter the perilous palace and find out!

My Thoughts:

Once again, Beth and Patrick are thrown into an exciting and unpredictable adventure as they travel to the 13^th century and encounter Kublai Khan! The mysterious knight who keeps leaving messages in the Imagination Station has left a plea fro a golden tablet from Kahn’s ancient kingdom. Mr. Whitaker supplies the children with a strange bag of “gifts” with the only instructions spearing on the tags on each of the packages.

Since this is Beth and Patrick’s third trip into an ancient time period, they have become a little less fearful and a little more intuitive to their circumstances and change in surroundings. Young readers will thrill to witness Mongol warriors, giant eagles and the magical “wise” men of Kublai Kahn’s court. The action steadily builds, and by the time the reader reaches the final page…

Well, let’s just say you better have adventure #4 ready to go! This is another exciting duo of books in Focus on the Family’s The Imagination Station series for young readers!

About the Author:
Marianne Hering is a prolific writer, having written hundreds of articles and a number of books for children and parents. For nine years she worked for several magazines in Focus on the Family's periodicals department and became the editor of Clubhouse, a Focus on the Family children's magazine with a circulation of over 100,000.

Marianne's book titles include two series for girls (Lights, Camera, Action; and White House Adventures) and a recent biography of William Bradford. Her most recent title is a compilation of activities from Clubhouse magazine, the Focus on the Family Clubhouse Family Activity Book.

As a mother of three children, Marianne is interested in parenting and education issues, including home schooling and tutoring reading. She graduated from Biola University (La Mirada, California) with a degree in psychology and has continued her education with courses in writing and editing. She and her husband, Doug, live in Colorado with their nine-year-old daughter, Danielle, and two-year-old twin sons, Justin and Kendrick.

Paul McCusker is the creative content director for Focus on the Family. He has been a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and drama since 1979. His work includes over forty published novels, full-length plays, dramatic sketch collections, and song lyrics. For the Adventures in Odyssey series alone, he has written over 200 half-hour radio episodes, eighteen novels, and two screenplays for the best-selling animated videos. He has dramatized many classics for Focus on the Family Radio Theatre, including A Christmas Carol and Jan Karon's At Home in Mitford. He also wrote and directed the Peabody Award–winning Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Freedom and created the highly acclaimed Father Gilbert Mysteries series. Paul lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two children.