Is Michael Vey Ok for Tweens to Read

Book Review

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Prison cell 25 — "Michael Vey" Series

Richard Paul Evans

Scientific discipline Fiction

Credits

Readability Age Range

12 and up

Publisher

Simon Pulse/Mercury Ink, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children'southward Publishing Division

Awards

NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Volume, 2012; IRA Young Adults Choices, 2012

Year Published

2012

Book Review

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans has been reviewed by Focus on the Family'due south marriage and parenting mag. It is the starting time volume in the "Michael Vey" series.

Plot Summary

Michael Vey is a skinny 14-yr-old, who is bullied relentlessly at every schoolhouse he attends. Beingness stuffed into garbage cans and lockers has go virtually routine, but when Jack and his gang try to pants him after school (remove his pants to embarrass him), Michael has finally had enough.

Anger sends electricity pulsing through his body. The powerful voltage shocks the bullies and leaves them gasping in pain. They won't carp him again. But the bullies aren't the only ones to witness his impressive powers. Michael's crush, Taylor Ridley, a cheerleader at Meridian Loftier, is watching.

Michael and his mom have tried difficult to go on his unusual ability undercover. They moved to a small-scale town in Idaho, and Michael's mom left a practiced chore at a police force business firm to become a checker at a supermarket. The only nonfamily member who knows that Michael is electrical is Ostin Liss, his brilliant just otherwise ordinary friend. Taylor witnessing his ability might jeopardize everything.

Michael avoids Taylor's persistent questions until she reveals that she besides has electrical powers. Taylor can't conduct electricity the way Michael can, but she tin can reboot people'south brains, making them temporarily forget what they were doing or proverb. She can also read minds.

Taylor, Ostin and Michael class a club called the Electroclan. They discover that Taylor and Michael were born at the same hospital in Pasadena, Calif., within days of each other. Ostin learns that in the 11 days surrounding their births, 59 babies were built-in at the Pasadena General Hospital, but only 17 survived. The deaths appear to be linked to a malfunctioning piece of hospital equipment that used a new applied science chosen magnetic electron induction (MEI). Elgen Inc. was conducting research on this technology until a technical malfunction suspended the enquiry.

Taylor and Michael are both contacted by a prestigious schoolhouse chosen Elgen Academy, located in Pasadena. They accept both won a full scholarship. Neither wants to get, but Elgen Inc. won't take no for an answer. Taylor's and Michael's moms are kidnapped. Michael and Ostin are determined to bulldoze to Pasadena to rescue them, but neither of them owns a car. Jack, the bully from schoolhouse, does, though.

Michael pays Jack and his henchman Wade $300 to drive them to Pasadena. On the way, he discovers that Jack isn't really a bad guy — just a victim of poor circumstances. When they arrive at the gated schoolhouse, Jack and Wade volunteer to assistance Michael and Ostin break in.

Meanwhile, Taylor is living the high life at Elgen Academy. Having recovered from the indignity of her capture, she learns that she has a twin named Tara. Tara is as well electrical and has lived at Elgen Academy for almost a decade. She tin can manipulate the emotions of people around her. Taylor and Tara go on a cyclone shopping trip and spend thousands of dollars on dress and jewelry at exclusive shops. She also meets Dr. Hatch, the man in accuse at Elgen Academy, and the rest of the electric children, called glows.

Hatch convinces Taylor to reboot a singer in the center of a song. She feels guilty later. When Hatch insists that she reboot a motorcyclist in the heart of a jump, Taylor refuses.

Taylor is tortured and locked in a cell with several other glows who have defied Hatch. Michael and Ostin break into their cell but are immediately captured, as are Jack and Wade. Hatch offers Michael safe passage for his friends and mother in return for his loyalty, but when Michael learns that he will have to electrocute Wade, he rebels. Hatch locks Michael in prison cell 25, where he is tortured past Tara, who makes him feel constant fear. However, his powers go along to increment daily.

Michael finally escapes with the aid of Zeus, a formerly brainwashed glow that he and Tara convince to turn against Hatch. They rescue the guinea pigs (ordinary humans that Hatch has imprisoned in the basement) including Jack and Wade. Michael defeats Nichelle, a glow who serves as Hatch's main enforcer, and Hatch escapes in a helicopter with the glows who remain loyal to him. Michael and his friends decide to follow them and gratuitous his mom.

Christian Beliefs

Other Belief Systems

All of the glows' abilities are accounted for scientifically, so no magic or supernatural intervention is involved. All the same, many of the glows believe that humans are less-advanced than glows and therefore expendable. Less desirable members of society are selected to be GPs (guinea pigs), and Dr. Hatch and the glows treat them as property.

Taylor learns about her electrical abilities while playing wizard with her friends. She casts a spell that actually works.

Passing references to Greek mythology include characters like Zeus, the glow who can shoot electricity from his fingertips. The principal'south stare is compared to that of Medusa, who was and so hideous she turned people to stone.

Say-so Roles

Michael and his mom have a remarkably loving, respectful and mutually sacrificial relationship. Michael occasionally hides information that he believes volition hurt his mother, such as being bullied at school or the fact that that Ostin knows about his electrical powers, but when she confronts him, he immediately confesses the truth. She forgives him and works with him to observe a solution to the problem. Michael's mother holds a job at a supermarket instead of a law firm to keep him safe, and Michael is open about his beloved and appreciation for her. He asks her permission earlier going to social events, lets her know where he is at all times and is open nigh his human relationship with Taylor.

Taylor was adopted, and her parents deeply love and care for her. They are involved in her life and empathize the emotional problems she may face. Taylor invites Michael home after schoolhouse to accept a private conversation with him most their abilities, but she tells him to leave later on they finish talking because she is not supposed to accept boys over when she is alone in the house. Ostin's mother is similarly loving and supportive.

Mr. Dallstrom, the master, has a skewed idea of justice. Instead of punishing the bullies who stuff Michael into his locker, he punishes Michael for not resisting. Jack and Wade accept poor home situations. Wade enjoys his prison house experience considering the guards are nicer than his grandmother.

Dr. Hatch is an evil mastermind who dreams of creating the perfect glow and a new race of electrically enhanced humans who will have over the world. He manipulates the electrical children whatever style he can. His methods include bribery, lies, threats, force and torture.

Profanity & Violence

There is one use of h—. Shut up is used several times.

Michael is constantly bullied, both physically and emotionally. Jack and his gang scout ultimate fighting and take Brazilian jujitsu lessons. They attack and endeavour to pants Michael afterwards schoolhouse (remove his pants to embarrass him). Nosotros learn that they once pants-ed Ostin, removing both his pants and underwear. Michael protects himself past electrocuting people, using varying degrees of voltage. When he was younger and less able to control himself, some of his tormentors were hospitalized.

Considering of the incident with Jack and his friends, Michael becomes known as Piffling Norris. Taylor perpetuates the myth, proverb he has a blackness belt. He is encouraged to have a friendly fight with a larger boy, Corky, and wins because Taylor reboots Corky but before Michael crashes into him. The contest ends amicably.

Hatch forces the republic of guinea pigs to wear electric shock collars that are capable of incapacitating or fifty-fifty killing them. Glows are tortured by other glows. Hatch tortures and threatens friends and family members of glows.

Hatch tells Michael that he killed his own begetter — accidentally electrocuting him. Like stories are told to other glows. It is suggested that Hatch is lying about the deaths to gain power over the glows.

Glows fight using their electrical powers. One glow uses his ability to make airplanes crash. A guinea pig sprays mace in a guard's face. Hatch tries to shoot Michael, but Zeus disintegrates the bullet before information technology reaches him.

Sexual Content

Ostin has a crush on every girl alive, including Michael'southward mom. He calls her a hot babe. Similar comments are directed at other females. Taylor is one of the most popular girls in high school, and even teachers have crushes on her. Tara has a crush on a male glow, Quentin. Taylor thinks Zeus is beautiful.

Michael has a crush on Taylor, but past the end of the book, they accept barely entered the beau-girlfriend phase, and concrete interaction is limited to a hug and a couple of kisses. Taylor hugs Michael to read his thoughts. Hatch offers to give Taylor to Michael in exchange for his cooperation.

Discussion Topics

Additional Comments

Cheating: Taylor reboots an opposing player during a basketball game, causing her squad to win the game. Afterward, she feels remorseful.

Smoking/Drugs/Alcohol: Jack smokes. Dr. Hatch serves champagne at a dinner.

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