Map of Flames (The Forgotten Five, Book 1)
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- USD 4.99
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- USD 4.99
Publisher Description
X-Men meets Spy Kids in this instant New York Times bestseller! Here’s the first book in a new middle-grade fantasy/adventure series from the author of The Unwanteds.
Fifteen years ago, eight supernatural criminals fled Estero City to make a new life in an isolated tropical hideout. Over time, seven of them disappeared without a trace, presumed captured or killed. And now, the remaining one has died.
Left behind to fend for themselves are the criminals’ five children, each with superpowers of their own: Birdie can communicate with animals. Brix has athletic abilities and can heal quickly. Tenner can swim like a fish and can see in the dark and hear from a distance. Seven’s skin camouflages to match whatever is around him. Cabot hasn’t shown signs of any unusual power—yet.
Then one day Birdie finds a map among her father’s things that leads to a secret stash. There is also a note:
Go to Estero, find your mother, and give her the map.
The five have lived their entire lives in isolation. What would it mean to follow the map to a strange world full of things they’ve only heard about, like cell phones, cars, and electricity? A world where, thanks to their parents, being supernatural is a crime?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A decade and a half after their supernatural criminal parents stole a fortune, five children raised on a tropical island enter the mainstream world and contend with their parents' complicated legacy. When her father—the only adult who hasn't vanished during runs to Estero over the last several years—dies, 13-year-old Birdie Golden, who can communicate with animals, is determined to follow his last request: find her mother and pass on a map to a fabled treasure stash, which he'd moved without telling the other adults. Birdie returns to Estero City, accompanied by younger brother Brix, whose super-resilience allows for rapid healing (the siblings are white); brown-skinned Tenner Cordoba, who possesses superhuman senses; Seven Palacio, whose camouflage powers result in changing skin tone; and white Cabot Stone, whose powers have yet to manifest. But the crew's special abilities and unfamiliarity with modern life make it difficult to function—let alone track down their missing parents—in a world where being supernatural is a crime. Though the worldbuilding feels ungrounded in McMann's (the Unwanteds series) cohort adventure, an alternating third-person perspective deftly depicts the five friends struggling to remain together as they navigate contemporary technologies, all the while employing their superpowers to survive in a dangerous new environment. Ages 8–12.
