SOLVED. YA Christian SciFi, similar to A Wrinkle in Time. [s]

[Dylan]

I read this book sometime between 2000-2003. I believe it is one book in a series. It felt like a kind of knock-off of A Wrinkle in Time, among others.

The main characters were siblings around 11 years old --- there were maybe two or three.

The children meet a group of misfits who take them around other dimensions. One member of the group is a dragonfly, who on their first meeting says "I don't mean to be rude, but where I'm from, open hands mean you're offering food". (The dragonfly bit one of the children who was offering a hand to shake.) Also, dragonflies give presents on their birthday rather than receive them.

The children and the group travel to different worlds/dimensions.

One of the worlds is a world of incessant, deafening advertisements that drive one insane if they listen long enough. A lady in that world sells small spheres that you put on your ear to silence the din.

One of the worlds is the Christian heaven. There, one of the siblings looks at the Christian God directly and is utterly destroyed. The rest of the group has to literally weave a new soul. They are obliged to include one "ugly" thread into the weave based on the idea that all souls have sin.

I remember that the Science department in Heaven had sophisticated technology for predicting people's actions. They pre-recorded a cassette tape with half of a conversation on it. The tape sat in the childrens' attic for a long time before the children found it. When the tape was found by the main characters, they were able to have a natural-sounding dialog because the department was able to perfectly predict what the childrens' half of the conversation would be. I remember this moment as being the "dark night of the soul" moment in the plot, where the children were somehow unable to receive any other help, so they retrieved the tape recorder as a last resort.

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Thanks for your help --- I've been looking for this book for ages, and I'd appreciate any pointers to the right direction.

[Dylan]

SOLVED.

This is the Journey to Fayrah series, by Bill Myers. It is also known as the Imager Chronicles, or the Bloodstone Chronicles.

[Rainbowheart]

The Portal for the link to the first book in the series.