Score: Father 0, Daughter 1

It's a flashy, attractive cover. It's a catchy title. I examined the book carefully, front and back cover, and saw nothing to indicate genre except for the designation "Adventure Series." But I saw it shelved in the Young Adult section of Deseret Book. And the protagonist is a teenaged boy. I decided I would think of it as a Young Adult novel. I had to think of it that way, otherwise I would have to give it a negative review.

Bart Elderberry is a new tenth grader who would have been excited to start high school if his family had stayed in California. Instead he starts high school in some unspecified town in Utah Valley. The first four chapters spend time letting him get used to his environment, meeting the girl that will become his love interest, having a run-in with the cowboy bullies, and generally making friends he can interact with for the rest of the book. In chapter five the action finally gets started.

There's a church dance, and a bunch of them hop in the car to go for a drive in the canyon. On the way down, thanks to the careless driving of a passing vehicle, they go tumbling over the edge of the road. That's when Bart discovers his body can fall off.

He thinks he's dead. And he's having a great time flying around here and there. But when he suddenly is sucked back into his body, he's obliged to reassess his conclusion. As the phenomenon keeps occurring, he finally figures out he's astral projecting, and learns to control it.

He also comes across a kidnapping plot, tied to an even more elaborate plot cooked up by some local scoundrel. Bart and his friends get involved, and have an easy time working things out with Bart's ability -- until Bart discovers that the scoundrel has employed someone else with the ability to astral project, and that someone else knows how to control it a whole lot better than Bart.

The writing style is clearly Young Adult. I couldn't have enjoyed it without thinking of it as any other genre. Once you get past the lengthy four-chapter introduction (which really should be shortened up), the action zings relentlessly. The book is very readable. But don't expect any sophistication or profundity. For me as an adult, I wouldn't have liked the book except to tell myself I was about to read a Young Adult novel, and deal with it at that level.

But for my fourteen-year-old daughter, it was fantastic. She loved it. She devoured it. She instantly demanded books two and three, which I own but have not yet read, and devoured them, then regaled me with her misery that more books didn't exist. This series is definitely Young Adult, and works quite well at that level.

Okay, so they're Young Adult. What's the big deal? Why do I keep harping on that?

Because in the Author's Note at the end of the book, I get the impression that Rowley didn't necessarily intend that they be Young Adult. And I also get the impression that they have succeeded with other adult readers. One man's poison, I guess. Rowley believes in the reality of astral projection -- convinced after much research -- and claims that others have approached him who have the ability and found his books helpful in dealing with the phenomenon. He believes astral projection is one of the gifts of the Spirit -- a talent given by God -- to certain people.

This is the gist of the Author's Note, and it's obvious why he would feel a need for an Author's Note to explain his attitude about astral projection, since many members of the church would consider it approaching apostasy, if not blasphemy, to call something traditionally associated with new age spookology a gift of the Spirit. Yet there's nothing in our theology that requires dismissal of the idea. All you need for astral projection is a spirit that can separate from the body, and LDS theology can certainly accommodate that.

Personally, I'm not convinced. But neither am I dissuaded. I would simply need to do my own research to convince myself Rowley's theory is true -- a claim like that requires some serious evidence before acceptance. But I hope it is. I think it would be fun to have astral projection be a reality.

In the meantime, your kids can read the series and enjoy it, and everyone can call it harmless fantasy if genuine astral projection is too creepy a concept for you. And you may even find that you can enjoy reading it too, as long as you don't expect Moby Dick or something. It's certainly a step above Goosebumps.

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D. Michael Martindale
dmichael@wwno.com