Inferno in Tokyo

The Imagination Station #20

by Marianne Hering

Over 1 million sold in series!

The Imagination Station has been malfunctioning for several adventures now, handing out the wrong gifts and traveling unexpected paths. Patrick and Beth must use their courage, strength, and resilience to help others and survive dangers as they travel through time and space and get caught up in the 1923 earthquake, tsunami, and fire that devastated Tokyo, Japan.

When kids step into the Imagination Station, they experience an unforgettable journey filled with action-packed adventure and excitement. Each book will whisk the reader away on the adventure with cousins Patrick and Beth to embark on a new journey around the world and back in time. This easy-to-read adventure, number 20 in the series, is the latest in the long-running successful series that has sold over 1 million books.

Genres: Childrens, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Christian Fiction, Adventure, Chapter Books

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2017

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 more than 100,000.

As a book developer for Focus on the Family, she and coauthor / creative director Paul McCusker launched the Adventures in Odyssey book series The Imagination Station in 2010. Currently the series includes 19 books, with two more contracted for 2017 release. Paul bowed out of his role in 2015 to pursue other creative avenues. The combined sales are more than 450,000.

Currently Marianne is a freelance writer taking assignments. She and her husband live in Colorado with their twin sons.

Reviews

[Heather]

It wasn't very interesting.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm enjoying reading Inferno In Tokyo to my 4 to 7 year old audience. They are huge fans of the Magic Tree House and we've run out of those, so finding the Imagination Station series of time-traveling kids is very exciting. They love the action and the adventurous kids in the story. However, there is a lot of very serious stuff: people are killed by a tsunami, cry, scream, fight, fall off a bridge into a river, are rejected, a woman loses a baby in a fire, zoo animals die in a fire. I find that by editing out some of these sad parts as I read aloud, the story is good for children. I really like the Christian perspective and themes of how Jesus's love is true and beautiful in any time or culture. This book, #20 in the series, ties together with the previous and subsequent books, but we didn't read either of those and still followed the story just as well.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much a knock-off of Magic Tree House, but I thought it was a lot better. The author gave our characters something to do. They had to look after Chibi-Chan, typically in the Magic Tree House the authors walk in a circle before running from an imaginary threat and going home.

Don't get me wrong, our characters don't do a ton, and we go very quickly from one disaster to another and seem to ignore everything that just happened.

I wish there would have been more history here. I'm unfamiliar with these people and places and we ended up looking up a lot of the information about them after we had finished. This was good, and we are such big Adventures in Odyssey fans that I'd imagine we will find more of these.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I preread this book to see if my nine year old would like the series. I enjoyed the story and learning about the events that happened. I even learned about a new historical figure that I didn't know about before. I think my son will like this series.

[GheenGirls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turtle just re-read this series at her own request. She said: great! Return to library.

[Laura McCarty-Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked that they didn't get caught by the tornado.

I didn't like that the apartment got on fire.