Children's Books: Freakling by Lana Krumweide

“If everyone is special, is anyone really special?” — Anonymous

The famous phrase is what  Lana Krumweide’s Freakling (Candlewick) is about. In the future, there is an isolated metropolis called Deliverance where everyone has a telekinetic power called psi. Taemon is an 11-year old boy who's finally starting to get the hang of using his power. Meanwhile, his older brother, Yens, torments him and is believed to become the new successor of Deliverance, otherwise known as the True Son. But what is unknown is Yens has true evil inside him, and unfortunately, everyone but Taemon is blind to that. Yens soon goes as far as almost killing his brother, which gives Taemon the ability to kill him. But Taemon can't do it, and the inner force that controls everyone's psi, takes Taemon's away. In Deliverance, those without psi are sent to colony of past psi-wielders, where they live in harmony with their hands.

Taemon decides to keep his loss of power in secret, and trick everyone into thinking he still has powers. But he soon becomes to cocky, and his secret is revealed at a sporting event. Taemon is immediately taken from his still loving family and is put into the colony. All because of Yens.

After reaching the colony, Taemon realizes that being powerless isn’t so bad, and is in fact better than having psi. He befriends plenty of people, and chooses to become the apprentice of a blacksmith. But soon, one of his friends tells him a secret that could cause all evil to break loose if psi-wielders found out. And, if it wasn’t obvious enough, Taemon accidentally lets the secret out, leading to all hell breaking loose.

Freakling is an amazing story about what happens when superpowers get out of hand. Ben Parker wasn’t wrong when he said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Five stars. You’ll be intrigued at every turn, wanting to read more and more. It was full of wonderful ideas and things that you wouldn’t think of. For example, you wouldn’t think of it as a bad thing if the people of Deliverance knew how the body worked. But Krumweide was able to think of the perfect reason: if they know how the body works, they can use that information for dangerous things. Detailed descriptions and flashbacks are always fun, getting you excited on why and how everything came to be.

Lana Krumweide is an article writer and poet for various children's magazines, including Highlights, Spider, Babybug, and others. This is her first book. She lives in Richmond, Virginia. ◊

Ian Buchsbaum is a kid who loves to read. In fact, the only thing he loves more than reading is writing. He loves writing about books -- and he’s already writing one of his own.