Kid Konnection: The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence

Every Saturday, I host a feature called Kid Konnection -- a regular weekend feature about anything related to children's books. This week, I'm going to share with you a new Disney illustrated middle-grade novel from Stan Lee.

Summary: Stan Lee presents a brand new, magical, super-powered adventure! When twelve magical superpowers are unleashed on the world, a Chinese-America teenager named Steven will be thrown into the middle of an epic global chase. He’ll have to master strange powers, outrun super-powered mercenaries, and unlock the mysterious powers of the Zodiac. -- Disney Press

You might be surprised to find that I am reviewing THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE by Stan Lee, Stuart Moore, and Andie Tong for this week's Kid Konnection post. I'm not exactly the ideal audience for this new series of books by the famous comic creator Stan Lee; however, I admit that I was intrigued by the premise. And, I figured it might be a fun read for Booking Son since he is the target audience!

THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE begins when a Chinese-American 14 year old boy named Steven is touring a museum in China. When he hears a strange sound behind a set of doors, he decides to follow it and finds himself in a major adventure that pits two warring factions, each with animal powers from the Chinese zodiac, against each other in a quest to change the world.

When Steven leaves the group of fellow students to follow the screams, he is face-to-face with Maxwell, a war contractor who is trying to take control of the various zodiac powers. Maxwell is fighting for total control of the dragon power with Jasmine, the leader of the other group. Steven gets caught up in the supernatural power fight when he finds himself taking on the traits of the tiger symbol. As Maxwell's group travels around the world trying to find more "hosts" for the powers, Jasmine and Steven (and the rest of her group) try to get to them first and sway them to the "good" side.

Steven is not only physically tested with his new superpowers, but he is also emotionally tested. He questions whom he can trust while also doubting his ability to save the world from Maxwell's dangerous plans!

I'm pretty sure I'm not the best person to be reviewing THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE. It's not a book I would normally pick up, nor do I know much about this genre in general. So keep that in mind when I share with you a few of my thoughts!

I did enjoy THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE, and I definitely think it's a great start to a planned trilogy. The book is action-packed and I suspect it will appeal to boys in general and even some reluctant readers. It will also probably appeal to fans of Stan Lee's! The pace of the book is extremely quick and I actually flew through the story. There was a nice blend of action scenes along with some intriguing points about Steven's characters too.

The artwork is just fantastic, although I'd expect nothing less from the authors. I thought the illustrations were the perfect complement to the story, and I really did enjoy taking the time to look at them. Fans of comics and graphic novels should go crazy over how awesome these drawings are.

One thing that stood out to me about THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE was how well the story ended. Just when I thought things might be a tad bit predictable, I was blown away by the ending. That's not to say that I was blindsided though. Rather, I loved how the book wrapped up (or should I say ended up with more questions than answers). What brought it to the next level to me was that there were enough clues that the ending actually did make sense... in a twisted way.

I wanted to give you an idea of THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE, so I decided to also include this video. Pretty cool, right?


Overall, I enjoyed THE ZODIAC LEGACY: CONVERGENCE despite not being the target audience for it. I am actually looking forward to the second installment just to see what's next in store for Steven!

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy of this novel.

If you'd like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children's books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, please leave a comment as well as a link below with your name/blog name and the title of the book! Feel free to grab the little button too!