Midnight for Charlie Bone: The Children of the Red King #1

Midnight for Charlie Bone explores the dichotomy of good versus evil that is common to the genre of children’s fantasy, such as J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. The Children of the Red King series’s good-and-evil conflict stems from the original 10 children of the Red King, all of whom inherited aspects of his power and split into two groups: “Five of his children turned to wickedness and the other five, seeking to escape the corruption that surrounded their evil siblings, left their father’s castle forever” (viii). While the conflict began centuries ago, the same conflict continues in the present with the Red King’s living descendants. However, the critical point here is that while half of the children weren’t malicious, they decided to leave rather than fight back against their family’s evil actions. This is still the case in the current version of the “war,” as the Bloors and Yewbeams are allowed to pursue their schemes, such as the kidnapping of Emma Tolly, mostly unchecked. A few people stood up to them, such as Lyell Bone, when he tried to intervene at the cathedral, but they were isolated and unsuccessful.