J. T. Cope IV

Having spent the last five years of post-secondary reading ‘grown-up books,’ I was excited when J. T. Cope IV, author of "Countryside: The Book of the Wise," approached me and offered an electronic version of his book in exchange for reading and reviewing it. While I am not a prolific reader of children’s or YA books by any stretch of the imagination, I have recently taken a university course in YA literature and found it to be incredibly helpful in writing this review.

The author, J. T. Cope IV, identifies that he spent seven years in the writing, re-writing, and editing of Countryside, and that one of the ideas behind Countryside—using familiar small towns as a setting—was to give middle-school children a place that would be easy for them to relate to. Although I found the prologue to be somewhat confusing, by the fourth chapter I was completely immersed in the story, and found myself using small towns I was familiar with in my mental creation of Countryside; therefore, making Cope’s desire for familiarity a success.

Identifying the magic as the flame—and basing it on 7 variable disciplines, earth, water, fire, air, life, time, and light—brought to my mind the teachings of the Hawaiian Huna, so rather than the power simply being magic that must be taught and learned to be attained, it was more the using of the inner workings of the already existing self. One of my favourite things about the narrative was how Countryside was found within the ‘normal’ world, and I thought this nicely paralleled the underlying message that the power—the flame—is found within.

Marti was, by far, my favourite character, with his sense of humour, humility, and bookishness quickly endearing him to my heart. I appreciated that Cope included his stutter as I think it’s incredibly important to identify normally marginalized characters, giving them an important voice within the narrative, and think it would be great if Marti’s character was developed further in following books. As to the other characters, I would like to have seen a bit more character development, perhaps backstories or short anecdotes to help identify personalities more. I found the main character, Luke, to be a somewhat passive character, and I hope future episodes in Countryside finds his self-confidence building as he continues to learn about the flame, and the importance of his role within Countryside. Also, I found the dynamic between Luke’s mom and Uncle Landon to be intriguing. As an adult reader, my mind immediately jumped to unrequited love, but given the identified age-group I realized it is much more likely to be due to the trouble between brothers. By the end of the novel I still wasn’t completely sure as to the reason for this dynamic so I’m hoping it gets resolved within the next instalment.

My biggest concern with the novel is the relatability to today’s middle school age group. As the author is a Marine from the Bible Belt I understand the reasoning behind the proper addressing of elders as Mr. So-and-So, but as with the continual use of yes sir and no sir, I found it to be very distracting. A nuclear family, perfectly respectful children, and clearly identified black (bad) & white (good) made the narrative just a “little too good to be true,” and, at times, a little hard to stomach. These days, the line between good and evil isn’t quite so defined, leaving this reader to question the validity of identifying it as such as I think that many children today would have a much harder time discerning the difference. On the other hand, during an interview (that can be found on YouTube), Copes identifies one of his goals in writing Countryside as: “something that [...] a parent would feel comfortable with their kids walking into a bookstore, and picking up and flipping through the pages, even if they didn’t take it home,” and this is a goal that I believe has been successfully met.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
For parents who are hesitant about introducing the extreme magicality (not a real word, I know) of Harry Potter to their children, this would be an excellent starting point. Countryside introduces the spectacular idea that there are worlds beyond our own, encourages independent thinking, and imparts the importance of forgiveness.

I found the characters to be mostly relatable for the age group with the exception of the language. Even though I live in a country known for its politeness, it would be more likely that I hear expletives from the mouths of 9 to 12 year olds rather that “yes, sir.” Respect is becoming a rarity in this age group (all age groups really), and while I do think this type of language could alienate some children from the book, perhaps their reading a story such as this would be a welcome lesson in respect, as well as being beneficial to child-parent relationships as family is of huge importance within the narrative.

I definitely recommend reading "Countryside: The Book of the Wise" regardless of your age, and I look forward to further releases by the author. For more information on the author and his works, check out his beautifully designed website.… (mehr)