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The Adventures of Kate #1
Heartlight
Kate is a teenage girl living with her astrophysicist grandfather in New England. When her grandfather's research attracts unwanted attention from an otherworldly visitor, he mysteriously disappears. Kate must rush to find him - and the secret that can save the Earth and the entire solar system from annihilation - before it's too late.
"One of the best Science Fantasies I've read in a long time."
-Madeleine L'Engle
"One of the best Science Fantasies I've read in a long time."
-Madeleine L'Engle
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1990
About the author
T.A. Barron
67 books1,239 followersT.A. Barron grew up in Colorado ranch country and traveled widely as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the winner of the de Grummond Medallion for “lifetime contribution to the field of children’s and young adult literature” and many other awards. T. A. Barron is the author of more than 30 highly acclaimed books, many of which are international bestsellers. They include The Lost Years of Merlin (now being developed into a feature film), The Great Tree of Avalon (a New York Times bestselling series), The Ancient One (the tale of a brave girl and a magical tree), and The Hero’s Trail (nonfiction stories of courageous kids).
Though he’d dreamed as a young man of becoming a writer, he couldn’t find anyone to publish his first novel. He joined a successful business, eventually became president, then decided to try again. So in 1990, he surprised his business partners by moving back to Colorado to become a writer and conservationist.
In 2000, he founded a national award to honor outstanding young people who help their communities or the environment: the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which honors 25 highly diverse, public-spirited kids each year. He recently produced a documentary film, Dream Big, profiling seven winners of the Barron Prize. When not writing or speaking, T. A. Barron serves on many boards including Princeton University, where he helped to create the Princeton Environmental Institute, and The Wilderness Society, which recently honored him with its highest award for conservation work. His favorite pastime is hiking, camping, or skiing in Colorado with his family.
Though he’d dreamed as a young man of becoming a writer, he couldn’t find anyone to publish his first novel. He joined a successful business, eventually became president, then decided to try again. So in 1990, he surprised his business partners by moving back to Colorado to become a writer and conservationist.
In 2000, he founded a national award to honor outstanding young people who help their communities or the environment: the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which honors 25 highly diverse, public-spirited kids each year. He recently produced a documentary film, Dream Big, profiling seven winners of the Barron Prize. When not writing or speaking, T. A. Barron serves on many boards including Princeton University, where he helped to create the Princeton Environmental Institute, and The Wilderness Society, which recently honored him with its highest award for conservation work. His favorite pastime is hiking, camping, or skiing in Colorado with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
February 7, 2020
Okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm sorry, I tried, but I just can't do this anymore.
My biggest problem with trying to read this is that the science-literate part of my brain is not something that I can just turn on and off at will. If this had been a fantasy story, that would be one thing, because in fantasy magic is kind of a given. But this was written and presented as science fiction, and it's painfully clear that T. A. Barron stands comfortably alongside Madeline L'Engle in the "YA Authors Who Think Science Is Neat But Can't Be Bothered to Learn How It Actually Works" Club.
Sure, that's all fine and dandy, except for the part where we already know how stars work. The gravitational collapse of a gas cloud packs a lot of molecules together into a very small space while also heating them up, and if this ball of gas is massive enough, the extreme pressures and temperatures will bring those molecules to a point where they're colliding often enough and moving fast enough where quantum tunneling kicks in and, through several different processes, lighter atoms begin to combine into heavier atoms, converting a tiny percentage of their mass into energy in the process. This energy then makes its way to the surface in the form that we perceive as sunlight. Sure, it's not sexy or glamorous, but there's nothing mystical about it.
How does this even work? You want to know what the "ingredients" for light are? Photons. That's it. Just a whole bunch of photons of greater or lesser energy (i.e. shorter or longer wavelengths, respectively). Not only would no self-respecting astrophysicist talk this way, but if you need a "recipe" to make it, then it's not light.
I don't know what the author was thinking here, but it makes absolutely no sense. A form of light that can not only dissolve matter and melt frozen stuff on contact (for that matter, which definition of "frozen" are we using here? The freezing point of water? Nitrogen? Lead?), but literally separate the soul from the body? The only thing you've succeeded in separating here is my suspension of disbelief.
Seriously, how is he doing this??? If you want to directly look at a planetary system around another star, even the biggest, most expensive, most stable telescopes will get you, at most, a picture of a dot, and maybe, if you're really, really lucky, and go to the trouble of precisely blocking out the light of the central star, a few much dimmer dots in orbit around the brighter dot—and even if you do all of that, you're still going to have to stare at it for anywhere from minutes to hours. That's why most of the current methods for detecting exoplanets are indirect: carefully measuring the brightness of a star over time to try to catch the miniscule dimming as a planet passes in front of it, carefully measuring the wavelength of the hydrogen absorption lines over time to try to catch the miniscule change in velocity from the gravitational tugging of a planet, or carefully measuring the star's position over time as the planet's pull tugs it oh-so-slightly away from where we predict it to be. There is NO WAY, and I mean no POSSIBLE way, with any technology that's even conceivable in the near future, to obtain a detailed image of an extrasolar system complete with planets, much less be able to see actual stellar flares in real time.
And that's not even getting into the scale failure! If you want to get a good look at a star, then exactly none of the orbits are going to be in your frame. And even for the smallest, coolest stars, if you want to look at the system as a whole, then you're going to have to zoom out so far that you're barely going to be able to see the planets, much less tell what color they are. So, if you ever see a picture that looks like this? It's an artist's conception, and a scientifically inaccurate one at that.
Say what now? The Sun is eventually going to die, but that will happen when its core runs out of hydrogen to fuse. Maybe there are scientifically feasible ways to end the life of a star prematurely... but this hippy-dippy mumbo-jumbo is certainly not one of them.
You... do know that butterflies don't have eyelids?
And this is the part where I'm not going to buy the argument that "but-but-but it's fantasy! Just go with it!" The author is referencing actual science here, so I'm going to hold him to actual scientific standards. He doesn't even manage to get the known science right! The Sun is not just going to collapse into a white dwarf at the end of its life—only the lowest-mass stars do that. A middle-weight like our Sun will expand into a red giant first, and then collapse into a white dwarf. The very highest mass stars will tear themselves apart in a brilliant explosion known as a supernova, violently shredding their outer layers while what's left of the core collapses into a black hole. There's oversimplifying for the sake of a lay audience, and then there's just being sloppy because you think you can get away with it because you don't expect your audience to know any better.
Ah yes, my old nemesis, sound in space. We meet again.
Okay, I've heard of antimatter. But what in the name of Einstein is anti-light? No, seriously, on an actual scientific basis, I want to know!
Not to mention, on a more general level, the characterization of the Royal Society as a bunch of closed-minded fools because they wouldn't accept Grandfather's off-the-wall research without definitive proof left a really bad taste in my mouth. They weren't out to get him because they couldn't handle new ideas, they were doing their jobs. The accepted scientific consensus can and does change, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and if you're insisting that the scientific community just take you at your word without being ready to provide that proof, that doesn't make you a misunderstood genius, it makes you a quack.
So, now that I've given an impromptu astronomy lesson that absolutely no one asked for, I'll add that the extreme scientific inaccuracies might have been tolerable if this book had actually been telling a good story, but it's not. As a matter of fact, it just seems incredibly derivative. Remember how I mentioned Madeline L'Engle earlier? Well, that wasn't a coincidence. As it turns out, here we have a story about a girl who, to save her world from a vague shadowy threat, is whisked to another planetary system via a handwaved scientific principle that's only vaguely explained, where she's attacked by a vague dark thing that's only ever explained as being the essence of Evil and which very nearly freezes her to death and forces her breathing and heartbeat to move to its rhythm, only to crash land on an alien planet where she's healed by the kind locals. This ringing any bells? If so, that's because beat for beat, it's almost the exact same plot as A Wrinkle in Time . Not to mention that the mystical talking animal who carries and protects her through the void of space is oddly reminiscent of A Swiftly Tilting Planet .
Not to mention, reading about a space battle with something called The Darkness just made me think of this:
Thus why I found it completely impossible to take the menacing villain seriously.
I quit reading right around the time we got to the alien civilizations. These characters are supposed to be aliens, and while they look completely different, they still talk and act exactly like humans. Even the way they helped Kate makes no sense: if these crystal things have spent their entire lives on a planet where frozen and snowy is the normal temperature and all of the local life is perfectly adapted to thrive in the freezing cold, then how on Earth did they know that Kate's life was in danger because she was too cold and needed to be warmed up? It makes no sense.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have an aneurysm brought on by bad science.
My biggest problem with trying to read this is that the science-literate part of my brain is not something that I can just turn on and off at will. If this had been a fantasy story, that would be one thing, because in fantasy magic is kind of a given. But this was written and presented as science fiction, and it's painfully clear that T. A. Barron stands comfortably alongside Madeline L'Engle in the "YA Authors Who Think Science Is Neat But Can't Be Bothered to Learn How It Actually Works" Club.
"Ever since I was a student at Oxford, I have suspected that deep in the core of every star there is a special substance—a substance that holds the key to explaining how stars really function."
"Isn't that the stuff you've written so much about? The stuff you call PLC?"
"PCL," corrected Grandfather. "It stands for Pure Condensed Light."
Sure, that's all fine and dandy, except for the part where we already know how stars work. The gravitational collapse of a gas cloud packs a lot of molecules together into a very small space while also heating them up, and if this ball of gas is massive enough, the extreme pressures and temperatures will bring those molecules to a point where they're colliding often enough and moving fast enough where quantum tunneling kicks in and, through several different processes, lighter atoms begin to combine into heavier atoms, converting a tiny percentage of their mass into energy in the process. This energy then makes its way to the surface in the form that we perceive as sunlight. Sure, it's not sexy or glamorous, but there's nothing mystical about it.
"So you've finally proved that PCL exists?" asked Kate.
"Even better," answered Grandfather, and his eyebrows lifted like rising white clouds. "I have identified all of its ingredients. I now possess the recipe for PCL."
How does this even work? You want to know what the "ingredients" for light are? Photons. That's it. Just a whole bunch of photons of greater or lesser energy (i.e. shorter or longer wavelengths, respectively). Not only would no self-respecting astrophysicist talk this way, but if you need a "recipe" to make it, then it's not light.
"I still don't get it. How does making some substance that's found in stars allow you to travel faster than light?"
"Well," answered the inventor as he studied the humming box closely, "during my years of work on PCL I've learned enough about it to predict that it has some rather unusual properties. For example, it ought to melt anything frozen that touches it. But very recently—purely by accident—I discovered that it also has another property. An absolutely astonishing property."
Kate could feel his swelling enthusiasm and it stirred her own. "What property is that?"
Grandfather straightened his tall frame and looked squarely at her. "PCL has the ability to liberate the part of us most similar to pure light."
"You mean our souls?" asked Kate in wonderment.
I don't know what the author was thinking here, but it makes absolutely no sense. A form of light that can not only dissolve matter and melt frozen stuff on contact (for that matter, which definition of "frozen" are we using here? The freezing point of water? Nitrogen? Lead?), but literally separate the soul from the body? The only thing you've succeeded in separating here is my suspension of disbelief.
As he twisted more dials, the brightly colored gases of a great nebula surrounding the star came into view. They spiraled around it like a brilliant veil of incandescent clouds, finally fading into the deep darkness of space.
[...]
Pressing a button, he brought the swirling clouds into sharper focus, revealing several planets which orbited through the glowing gases of the star's system. One of them gleamed with a pearly white color. In the center of the spiraling veil, the great red star Trethoniel sat like an imperious queen upon her throne, unaging and untouchable.
[...]
Grandfather spun another dial, and the seething, scorching surface of the star completely filled the screen. Towers of superheated gases danced thousands of miles out into space.
Seriously, how is he doing this??? If you want to directly look at a planetary system around another star, even the biggest, most expensive, most stable telescopes will get you, at most, a picture of a dot, and maybe, if you're really, really lucky, and go to the trouble of precisely blocking out the light of the central star, a few much dimmer dots in orbit around the brighter dot—and even if you do all of that, you're still going to have to stare at it for anywhere from minutes to hours. That's why most of the current methods for detecting exoplanets are indirect: carefully measuring the brightness of a star over time to try to catch the miniscule dimming as a planet passes in front of it, carefully measuring the wavelength of the hydrogen absorption lines over time to try to catch the miniscule change in velocity from the gravitational tugging of a planet, or carefully measuring the star's position over time as the planet's pull tugs it oh-so-slightly away from where we predict it to be. There is NO WAY, and I mean no POSSIBLE way, with any technology that's even conceivable in the near future, to obtain a detailed image of an extrasolar system complete with planets, much less be able to see actual stellar flares in real time.
And that's not even getting into the scale failure! If you want to get a good look at a star, then exactly none of the orbits are going to be in your frame. And even for the smallest, coolest stars, if you want to look at the system as a whole, then you're going to have to zoom out so far that you're barely going to be able to see the planets, much less tell what color they are. So, if you ever see a picture that looks like this? It's an artist's conception, and a scientifically inaccurate one at that.
"Do you see the dark blotch in the lower hemisphere?"
"It looks like a huge sunspot."
"If only it were! That is a PCL void deep within the core of the Sun. And according to the figures, it's spreading like a deadly cancer. At this rate, the Sun has no more than a thousand years left to live."
Say what now? The Sun is eventually going to die, but that will happen when its core runs out of hydrogen to fuse. Maybe there are scientifically feasible ways to end the life of a star prematurely... but this hippy-dippy mumbo-jumbo is certainly not one of them.
Morpheus slowly blinked his great green eyes.
You... do know that butterflies don't have eyelids?
He had said that every star eventually reaches a point where the age-old balance between its own gravity, which pulls inward, and its radiant energy, which pulls outward, will fall apart. If it's a normal star, like the Sun, it will suddenly shudder and compress down to the size of a moon. But if it's unusually massive, it could expand and expand like a luminous red balloon until—at last—it will burst and collapse so fast and so far that it will disappear completely, leaving nothing behind but a black hole.
And this is the part where I'm not going to buy the argument that "but-but-but it's fantasy! Just go with it!" The author is referencing actual science here, so I'm going to hold him to actual scientific standards. He doesn't even manage to get the known science right! The Sun is not just going to collapse into a white dwarf at the end of its life—only the lowest-mass stars do that. A middle-weight like our Sun will expand into a red giant first, and then collapse into a white dwarf. The very highest mass stars will tear themselves apart in a brilliant explosion known as a supernova, violently shredding their outer layers while what's left of the core collapses into a black hole. There's oversimplifying for the sake of a lay audience, and then there's just being sloppy because you think you can get away with it because you don't expect your audience to know any better.
...a new formation, shimmering in the stellar breeze, caught Kate's attention. It resembled a kind of curtain, a curtain made of thousands of lavender-tinted icicles. She heard them tinkling gently as the winds passed through them, and the soothing sound helped her mood to pass as well.
Ah yes, my old nemesis, sound in space. We meet again.
"This creature must be made of some kind of anti-light!" cried Morpheus.
Okay, I've heard of antimatter. But what in the name of Einstein is anti-light? No, seriously, on an actual scientific basis, I want to know!
Not to mention, on a more general level, the characterization of the Royal Society as a bunch of closed-minded fools because they wouldn't accept Grandfather's off-the-wall research without definitive proof left a really bad taste in my mouth. They weren't out to get him because they couldn't handle new ideas, they were doing their jobs. The accepted scientific consensus can and does change, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and if you're insisting that the scientific community just take you at your word without being ready to provide that proof, that doesn't make you a misunderstood genius, it makes you a quack.
So, now that I've given an impromptu astronomy lesson that absolutely no one asked for, I'll add that the extreme scientific inaccuracies might have been tolerable if this book had actually been telling a good story, but it's not. As a matter of fact, it just seems incredibly derivative. Remember how I mentioned Madeline L'Engle earlier? Well, that wasn't a coincidence. As it turns out, here we have a story about a girl who, to save her world from a vague shadowy threat, is whisked to another planetary system via a handwaved scientific principle that's only vaguely explained, where she's attacked by a vague dark thing that's only ever explained as being the essence of Evil and which very nearly freezes her to death and forces her breathing and heartbeat to move to its rhythm, only to crash land on an alien planet where she's healed by the kind locals. This ringing any bells? If so, that's because beat for beat, it's almost the exact same plot as A Wrinkle in Time . Not to mention that the mystical talking animal who carries and protects her through the void of space is oddly reminiscent of A Swiftly Tilting Planet .
Not to mention, reading about a space battle with something called The Darkness just made me think of this:
Thus why I found it completely impossible to take the menacing villain seriously.
I quit reading right around the time we got to the alien civilizations. These characters are supposed to be aliens, and while they look completely different, they still talk and act exactly like humans. Even the way they helped Kate makes no sense: if these crystal things have spent their entire lives on a planet where frozen and snowy is the normal temperature and all of the local life is perfectly adapted to thrive in the freezing cold, then how on Earth did they know that Kate's life was in danger because she was too cold and needed to be warmed up? It makes no sense.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have an aneurysm brought on by bad science.
January 27, 2013
Saccharine and boring and convoluted. Do not read unless you are a 12 year old girl, and even then, with discretion.
July 10, 2017
1.5*
I agree with the review on the cover (though I hate it when books have reviews on the front cover) that this story is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy. However, that trilogy might be my least favorite of Lewis' and I like this book even less. It was boring and Kate was annoying. Don't be rude to people who risk their lives to help you!
Barron created some alien species, but there was some confusion as to how much they knew of our planet. If I recall correctly, Ariella has not heard of Earth, but she says at one point "On your planet, you might call it...", which wouldn't make sense if she doesn't know anything about Earth. There was also an explanation of rings as being bracelets for fingers, but how could Kate expect her alien friend to know what a bracelet is if she doesn't know what a ring is?
The characters can also, at times, read each other's minds and I wasn't sure when exactly that was possible and for whom, so that got confusing.
I'll end on a positive note by saying that I really like some of the names in this book, like Ariella and Trethoniel.
I agree with the review on the cover (though I hate it when books have reviews on the front cover) that this story is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy. However, that trilogy might be my least favorite of Lewis' and I like this book even less. It was boring and Kate was annoying. Don't be rude to people who risk their lives to help you!
Barron created some alien species, but there was some confusion as to how much they knew of our planet. If I recall correctly, Ariella has not heard of Earth, but she says at one point "On your planet, you might call it...", which wouldn't make sense if she doesn't know anything about Earth. There was also an explanation of rings as being bracelets for fingers, but how could Kate expect her alien friend to know what a bracelet is if she doesn't know what a ring is?
The characters can also, at times, read each other's minds and I wasn't sure when exactly that was possible and for whom, so that got confusing.
I'll end on a positive note by saying that I really like some of the names in this book, like Ariella and Trethoniel.
November 19, 2021
My copy of Heartlight has a cover blurb from Madeleine L'Engle, but even if it didn't, the connection would naturally suggest itself. This book has a great deal in common with A Wrinkle in Time. So much so that it's really hard to ignore, and I'm surprised that other reviewers haven't mentioned it.
In both books we have a spunky, misfit young girl. Her older male relative (father in Wrinkle, grandfather in Heartlight) has made a stunning scientific discovery that allows him to take off and travel easily across the universe to different star systems. Unfortunately there's also a universe-spanning archvillain out to kill off everything good in existence, thus necessitating the young girl to join a rescue mission. And aliens crafted without regard to physical plausibility, and so on.
Much of Heartlight seems to have been thrown together without planning or forethought, and it would certainly have benefited from a rewrite or three before being sent off for publication. Early on, heroine Kate is zipping through a distant galaxy when she gets attacked by "a Darkness", and Kate crashes onto a nearby planet but apparently the plunge doesn't hurt her one bit. Better still, she happens to land near two anthropomorphized snow crystals who are able to communicate with her telepathically in flawless English, and also reasonably close to the one plot device on the planet who can help save the day. Things go likewise throughout the book: improbable coincidences and violations of basic science and logic pile up, and a tissue of vague spiritualism is pulled over the whole story as if it excuses all the problems. Skip this book; it's not worth it.
In both books we have a spunky, misfit young girl. Her older male relative (father in Wrinkle, grandfather in Heartlight) has made a stunning scientific discovery that allows him to take off and travel easily across the universe to different star systems. Unfortunately there's also a universe-spanning archvillain out to kill off everything good in existence, thus necessitating the young girl to join a rescue mission. And aliens crafted without regard to physical plausibility, and so on.
Much of Heartlight seems to have been thrown together without planning or forethought, and it would certainly have benefited from a rewrite or three before being sent off for publication. Early on, heroine Kate is zipping through a distant galaxy when she gets attacked by "a Darkness", and Kate crashes onto a nearby planet but apparently the plunge doesn't hurt her one bit. Better still, she happens to land near two anthropomorphized snow crystals who are able to communicate with her telepathically in flawless English, and also reasonably close to the one plot device on the planet who can help save the day. Things go likewise throughout the book: improbable coincidences and violations of basic science and logic pile up, and a tissue of vague spiritualism is pulled over the whole story as if it excuses all the problems. Skip this book; it's not worth it.
April 19, 2022
I liked following Kate's story, not necessarily a favorite in the series.
Shelved as 'dnf'
February 24, 2020DNF page 94 of 272.
Really disappointed with Heartlight. Picked this up after discovering my childhood favorite The Ancient One is book two in the Adventures of Kate series, with Heartlight being the first in the trilogy. Honestly, I have no idea wtf I just read.
Really disappointed with Heartlight. Picked this up after discovering my childhood favorite The Ancient One is book two in the Adventures of Kate series, with Heartlight being the first in the trilogy. Honestly, I have no idea wtf I just read.
January 24, 2015
This book is pretty stupid, but the second book in this series was my favorite book in the 6th grade, and I just realized it was a trilogy. Luckily, it's not a series that requires you to read any of the other books; so, my 6th grade self did not suffer from not reading this book. Unfortunately, my adult self did.
October 2, 2016
this book was nice if you like fantasy which I do it made me feel amazed. I learned that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. and I would recommend this book to someone who likes fantasy because this book is made for people who like fantasy.
August 18, 2023
3.5 would be more accurate, but this was enjoyable enough I'm good bumping it up to 4 here on Goodreads. A rather whimsical sci-fantasy. I have suspicions about T.A. Barron's plotting style given some aspects of the book, but no issues aside from some odd moments of things dropped into the story or some shifts/stakes being brought in. Kate is a fine enough protagonist to follow-even though she's described a fair bit and the reader does get to know her quite a bit, I was relatively unattached to her. Especially so in a way that made some of the efforts other characters make seem a bit more plot-based than their character attachment or like of her as it is implied to be. Definitely had to suspend my brain's knowledge of physics and some other matters, but that was no issue once certain sentient things got introduced.
Apparently, if you don't believe science and religion can coexist or that the universe being billions of years old (and Earth being ancient as well) and God being behind it can simultaneously be held as true, don't read it? Just an odd thing from another review I saw. That was an interesting aspect for me as someone who has grown distant to a lot of mainstream religion, but I liked it as it tied the 'magic' of the story in to fit with the physics. Mythicality meets reality. That is all I can think to say now.
Apparently, if you don't believe science and religion can coexist or that the universe being billions of years old (and Earth being ancient as well) and God being behind it can simultaneously be held as true, don't read it? Just an odd thing from another review I saw. That was an interesting aspect for me as someone who has grown distant to a lot of mainstream religion, but I liked it as it tied the 'magic' of the story in to fit with the physics. Mythicality meets reality. That is all I can think to say now.
January 6, 2023
I highly recommend Heartlight to anyone who loves a good adventure story. The characters are unique and well-developed, and the universe that Barron has created is truly cool and imaginative.
One of the things I love most about this book is the way that Barron has crafted the story. It is well-formed and engaging, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The plot is well-paced and full of twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat. I also really appreciate the causes that T.A. Barron supports and the message of hope and positivity that runs throughout the book.
In short, Heartlight is a must-read for anyone who loves a good adventure story. It has all the elements that make for a great read – compelling characters, a well-developed plot, and a positive message – and I highly recommend it to all readers.
One of the things I love most about this book is the way that Barron has crafted the story. It is well-formed and engaging, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The plot is well-paced and full of twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat. I also really appreciate the causes that T.A. Barron supports and the message of hope and positivity that runs throughout the book.
In short, Heartlight is a must-read for anyone who loves a good adventure story. It has all the elements that make for a great read – compelling characters, a well-developed plot, and a positive message – and I highly recommend it to all readers.
March 22, 2019
I read this book for the ATY 2019 Challenge Week 33: a book you have had for a year and not read.
All science-fiction has things that are hard to swallow, I think. That is fine. The same is true of fantasy, but this book had too many things that I had a tough time choking down. In a way, it is a pseudo-religious book with a belief in a Pattern. But there is also a talking star! I did read it to the end because it had a cliffhanger ending going on, but I did not like the ending. It did not really make sense. Perhaps it is just not the kind of book I like to read. Sorry.
All science-fiction has things that are hard to swallow, I think. That is fine. The same is true of fantasy, but this book had too many things that I had a tough time choking down. In a way, it is a pseudo-religious book with a belief in a Pattern. But there is also a talking star! I did read it to the end because it had a cliffhanger ending going on, but I did not like the ending. It did not really make sense. Perhaps it is just not the kind of book I like to read. Sorry.
November 12, 2019
Barrons erster Roman und zugleich der letzte, der mir noch fehlte, um alle gelesen zu haben. Nachdem ich in letzter Zeit (Atlantis-Saga, Merlin's Dragon Trilogy) nicht mehr so begeistert war, verwebt diese sensible Geschichte Fantasy und Wissenschaft behutsam mit Elementen von ewiger Wiederkehr im Kreislauf der Dinge. Viele Merkmale seiner späteren Romane zeigen sich bereits und man merkt, dass man es mit einem jungen Autoren zu tun hat. Aber dafür weht ein frischer Wind durch die vergilbten Seiten. Berührend!
July 1, 2021
The ideas presented in the book are really great but they were just not executed that well. I thought the idea of a heartlight was super interesting and the grandfather was my favorite character except for the fact that he seemed kind of annoying and rude when he was working but Kate overall was just so under developed. I didn’t know where to pull sympathy from because she was giving me nothing to work with and then at the end she really asks herself “was it really all a dream?” I was like… this whole thing just happened and you’re about to dismiss it?? I had to read the book for my children’s lit class so I understand that at 24 years old I’m not the intended audience but that’s why I gave it 3 stars instead of two… there are definitely better books out there… this book was good but could’ve been better
December 20, 2020
2.5 stars rounded down. The Ancient One is one of my all time favorite YA books, and I love the Merlin books by T.A. as well, I think this might have been a higher rating if I didn’t come into it with such high expectations. The lessons and focus on nature and the circle of life are there, but this one felt a bit harder to follow and visualize. T.A is an amazing author, this just isnt one of my favorite of his books.
March 25, 2018
ridiculous world building (interstellar travel on giant months powered by the energy of the human soul?) and clumsy dialogue and characterization and on top of that a religious message; seemed like a bad rip off of Wrinkle in Time and not worth reading. (plus the main character traveled with her grandfather, Dr. Prancer, and the ridiculous name put me off).
July 19, 2018
The plot was everywhere. The characters were dull. Thee writing was bland. The same thing happened repeatedly. The author needs a thesaurus. The phrase 'It took all she had' was used twice in the same paragraph. Also 'help' was on every other page
December 1, 2019
The book was good. Clearly for a young audience and with at time too heavy a splash of pseudoscience, but a fine enough adventure story. Character arcs are nonexistent and the main character is not entirely sympathetic for the reader. Basically, a fun, quick read with little depth.
May 18, 2021
Unlike the other reviews, Those that make this book seem trash, This particular one achieves the senses use in a real scenario and applies them with fantasy. Sad ending, Science, and skill are used to determine who lives. watch what you think. Reading it over and over helps develop the main picture
February 7, 2019
The ending was pretty annoying. The classic it was all a dream thing really put me in a sour mood.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2019
I tried reminding myself I was reading a middle grade book. I thought it would help me enjoy the story more. It didn’t.
January 18, 2021
One of my absolute favorite books from when I was younger.
February 26, 2021
I didn't know there would be so much Christian ideology in this series.
When you're expecting it and have accepted it, okay.
But when you're blindsided by the hidden agenda...
It's...
Tiresome.
When you're expecting it and have accepted it, okay.
But when you're blindsided by the hidden agenda...
It's...
Tiresome.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
October 7, 2021Couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t get over the whole made up science thing.
March 1, 2022
This was a totally random find at a used bookstore that I ended up loving! It definitely had Wrinkle in Time vibes.
February 20, 2018
Readalike: A Wrinkle in Time
July 6, 2015
Disfruté la travesía de la joven Kate en una novela fuerte en ambientación, especialmente en los variados ambientes físicos que se van presentando, muy imaginativos y sorprendentes, siempre detallados con color e impacto.
Es una historia de redefinición de conceptos en una Kate preadolescente que pronto tendrá su propia metamorfosis. Sin duda todos los eventos a punto de vivir marcarán su perspectiva de la vida como adulta.
Hearlight introduce al lector y a la heroína en las posibilidades de otros planos de vivencia más allá de los sentidos y en la aceptación de la muerte como parte inmutable de la vida. A través de símbolos como la luz pura, la oscuridad, las mariposas Morpho, la nieve, el desierto, entre otros, se van tejiendo preguntas y reflexiones sobre diversos temas muy humanos, como el afán científico, el deseo de vivir para siempre o el papel que juega el afecto en nuestras vidas.
De un ambiente físico inicial, interior (la casa del abuelo astrónomo) que sentimos repleto de objetos y recuerdos, algo confinado quizás, siempre fuera de lo común, la historia toma un momento al aire libre, donde da un primer paso a un primer "exterior" aparentemente frágil y sin noticias, el de los insectos, las flores, el cielo y sus estrellas... Allí comienza a sugerirse la Luz "pura y condensada" como ingrediente vital del universo y como vehículo y punto de llegada, dimensión material y espiritual. La luz es "alma" y nos conecta con todo lo demás que existe.
Posteriormente, al saltar al otro "exterior", verdadero escenario de la historia, espacio abierto más allá de la Tierra, comienzan a sucederse los episodios. La luz o su ausencia absoluta van acompañando un viaje de cambios abruptos de atmósfera y geografía, de nuevas percepciones de tiempo y comunicación. El exterior ya no es un apacible jardín sino una inmensidad incierta, cambiante, impredecible, a veces muda, a veces letal, resbaladiza e inmóvil, constrastante, ruda, que exige lucha por sobrevivencia, por la entereza, zonas de batalla y de reposo.
Surgen en el camino, sin embargo, valores compartidos de solidaridad, generosidad, amistad, aun entre seres definitivamente extraños entre sí.
Aun en medio de lo inestable, exasperante y enormemente desafiante, en medios misteriosos, engañosos, enigmáticos, se encuentra belleza, sonoridad, música, honestidad. Esperanza y salvación.
Es una historia de redefinición de conceptos en una Kate preadolescente que pronto tendrá su propia metamorfosis. Sin duda todos los eventos a punto de vivir marcarán su perspectiva de la vida como adulta.
Hearlight introduce al lector y a la heroína en las posibilidades de otros planos de vivencia más allá de los sentidos y en la aceptación de la muerte como parte inmutable de la vida. A través de símbolos como la luz pura, la oscuridad, las mariposas Morpho, la nieve, el desierto, entre otros, se van tejiendo preguntas y reflexiones sobre diversos temas muy humanos, como el afán científico, el deseo de vivir para siempre o el papel que juega el afecto en nuestras vidas.
De un ambiente físico inicial, interior (la casa del abuelo astrónomo) que sentimos repleto de objetos y recuerdos, algo confinado quizás, siempre fuera de lo común, la historia toma un momento al aire libre, donde da un primer paso a un primer "exterior" aparentemente frágil y sin noticias, el de los insectos, las flores, el cielo y sus estrellas... Allí comienza a sugerirse la Luz "pura y condensada" como ingrediente vital del universo y como vehículo y punto de llegada, dimensión material y espiritual. La luz es "alma" y nos conecta con todo lo demás que existe.
Posteriormente, al saltar al otro "exterior", verdadero escenario de la historia, espacio abierto más allá de la Tierra, comienzan a sucederse los episodios. La luz o su ausencia absoluta van acompañando un viaje de cambios abruptos de atmósfera y geografía, de nuevas percepciones de tiempo y comunicación. El exterior ya no es un apacible jardín sino una inmensidad incierta, cambiante, impredecible, a veces muda, a veces letal, resbaladiza e inmóvil, constrastante, ruda, que exige lucha por sobrevivencia, por la entereza, zonas de batalla y de reposo.
Surgen en el camino, sin embargo, valores compartidos de solidaridad, generosidad, amistad, aun entre seres definitivamente extraños entre sí.
Aun en medio de lo inestable, exasperante y enormemente desafiante, en medios misteriosos, engañosos, enigmáticos, se encuentra belleza, sonoridad, música, honestidad. Esperanza y salvación.
May 25, 2010
I read this book in fifth grade because it sounded interesting and it was written by a great author I was following at the time, T.A. Barron. I remember how I was engulfed in it and read it in five days (considerably a short time for me back then) and how I stayed up turning page after page. I think I enjoyed it so much because it was my first step into a genre I had never read before: science fiction. The ideas of space, physics, aliens, and a bit of humanity have to be included in a science-fiction book to make it interesting. Heartlight had all those things and more. I believe this book served as a doorway for me into the rich and elaborate world of sci-fi, which I have been completely engulfing lately! However, I'm making Heartlight sound too perfect. It does have a flaw. The conclusion to this story didn't draw every loose string together in a very neat fashion. Instead, it left the reader pondering about why the sudden concluding events left them hanging from a cliff. I remember thinking to myself, I bet it'll make more sense when I read the next book in the trilogy. Well guess what? T.A. Barron's second book, while being fantastic on its own, had nothing to do with Heartlight. All in all, I think Barron did a fantastic job for his writing debut! Heartlight is a great science fiction novel for young readers that sends deep messages out to the reader!
April 29, 2013
I read most of Barron's early books when I was in Elementary School and Junior High (I still remember trying to memorize the ballad in his book The Merlin Effect, and how excited I was when I read that there were actually going to be two more Lost Years of Merlin books!). Lately I've been on a kick of rereading some of the books I read as a kid.
I loved the story all over again! Why not believe in fantastical things? And I appreciate that Barron embraces death in his books as well. This time around Kate felt far more annoying, which was a great reminder that kids sometimes don't know how to process and take things in... as a kid I didn't think anything of her struggles, they made complete sense! So that was an interesting experience!
I'd recommend the text to anyone, and particularly young girls in upper elementary or Junior High.
I loved the story all over again! Why not believe in fantastical things? And I appreciate that Barron embraces death in his books as well. This time around Kate felt far more annoying, which was a great reminder that kids sometimes don't know how to process and take things in... as a kid I didn't think anything of her struggles, they made complete sense! So that was an interesting experience!
I'd recommend the text to anyone, and particularly young girls in upper elementary or Junior High.
January 22, 2013
I would actually give this book a 3.75 for a few reasons. I thought that the plot for this book could have been interesting, but the way it was written, I think that it could have been better. It was a touching story but got quite boring in many parts of the book. I was reading that book and thinking about what I thought of it, and what I would rate it. I was thinking that I would give it a three, then came the ending. The ending definitely made it a better book, not the ending to the plot but the last chapter to the story. The ending was the worst ending in the history of endings, but that is what made the book, for me, go our with a bang.
May 1, 2015
I am distressed by how bad this book was. The Ancient One was one of my favorite books as a kid and I read it over and over, so how can this book be so terrible? It probably deserves 2 stars, but I took away another star because it kept shoving religion down my throat. Which I find particularly jarring in a book about interstellar travel where none of the characters have ever heard of religion nor god. Also, the plot was exactly like that of A Wrinkle In Time (another of my favorites growing up). Just terrible.
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