This is the 4th book in a series (The Misawa Saga). I read the 3rd in the series and really enjoyed it. This book continues the story using characters from the Cree in Canada. There’s a lot of adventure and heart-stopping excitement of monster chases and good-guy-wins that appeal to the middle schooler. The Cree names and phrases can be a little overwhelming at first, but they get easier as the story unfolds. However, the character of Emily didn't really fit into the story very well. I think she was too much of a distraction and not really relevant. I enjoyed this book, but I liked the 3rd one better. ( )

I received this book as an early review book. Since it is book 4 in a series I decided to read the whole series in order to give it its best chance. I was not disappointed. I grew to love the characters and I don't think reading it as a stand alone would have done it justice. This is a wonderful middle grade book that is great for the whole family. ( )

I received this book to review. I had previously read book two and I like this book much better. It is a page-tuner and the plot keeps thickening as the book goes along. ( )

Eli, Morgan, and Emily once again journey through a portal to the North Country where they meet up with the Pisiskowak of Ministik. The villagers are being kidnapped by human captors, and the three children make it their quest to discover what is happening and to save their friends. David A. Robertson's superb storytelling makes the characters come alive in your imagination. You are taken on an exciting journey as Eli's story and connection with the spirit world begin to unfold. Anxiously awaiting the next book in this saga. ( )

As I began to read this book, I discovered that it is not a stand-alone story and I have to read or re-read the first three in the series. Since that's a valid observation for a review, I thought I would point that out here in my pre-review.

The other thing I noticed in the first two chapters (before closing the book and starting to re-read the first volume in the series) is that there is a budding romance between one of the protagonists and an additional young teen who's a later addition to the group. I'm not a fan of romance in YA adventure or fantasy, I feel it's an entirely different genre. Thinking of the Narnia stories or Swallows and Amazons, I'm glad they didn't introduce romantic entanglements. So that's a second thing to point out because there are people for whom teen romance is an important content consideration.

After re-reading first, and reading the second and third books in the series, The Portal Keeper is really quite different from the previous ones. The first three are best read in order, for better understanding, but they all end by wrapping up the story in the last chapter. The Portal Keeper ends on a cliff-hanger. The children are standing on a battlefield. They hope to rescue their friends and fellow-creatures of the world beyond the portals, but they have not yet devised a plan to follow.

And the battlefield is much more dire and more real-world than the conflicts in the previous three books, which could be categorized as "fantasy violence". The antagonists of The Portal Keeper are black-clad humans from Winnipeg, wearing bullet-proof body armour and carrying automatic weapons which they have used. The children and their animal allies arrive at the scene of a massacre and succeed in disarming two (one of whom is eaten offscreen by Mahihkan the wolf), but they carry secondary weapons and Morgan gets Tasered. It's a disturbing scene. The book ends with the intruders dead or magically removed, the survivors from the burned village leaving to make the trek to the relative safety of Misewa, and the human children with their animal friends preparing to rescue the captured beings from the Winnipeg zoo.

I'm waiting for the fifth book! I want to know what happens next. ( )