"Endymion Spring" by Matthew Skelton

(978-0-3857-3456-1)

This is a book that takes place in two different eras...one in the mid 1400's and the other in our modern times.

Blake is a young American living in England while his mother studies at Oxford. He lives with her and his little sister, Duck, often finding himself in libraries. One day, as he is walking by, running his hands along the books on the shelf, rapping them with his knuckles...one of the books hits him back! He looks at his hand and sees blood, and he sees a book laying on the floor; he picks it up and sees that it is a vary old book...but it is blank.

Why would there be a blank book in a library, one that doesn't even look like it belongs there for it is not even cataloged? As he is looking through the blank pages, words start to form...and he reads the name "Endymion Spring."

What does it mean? And why is it that only he can read the words on the paper? Did the book really jump out at him for a reason? Did it choose him?

Legends speak of a a book, a book simply referred to as the Last Book. This book contains all the knowledge of good and evil which tempted Adam and Eve in the garden. All of the past and everything to come in the future...it is all written in this book. "Endymion Spring" is the book that tells where to find the "Last Book." And the Person in Shadow is someone who wants that book more than anything else, and will do anything to get it. "Endymion Spring", you see, is literally a living book...it knows whom it can trust, and it knows the heart of the evil that wants the secret which it holds in its covers!

But who is Endymion Spring?

Endymion Spring is a boy living in 1452...an apprentice to Johannes Gutenberg. Johan Fust is a man who steals something very valuable, the contents are stored in a magnificent chest...but he cannot access the contents, not all of them. Only the blood of an innocent can reveal the contents...and Endymion Spring is the boy who can bring forth the words. But he cannot let Fust get the book stored within the chest, for Fust will use it for evil! So Endymion Spring takes the book with him and runs away...he must protect the book!

What, then, is the connection between Blake in the 21st century and Endymion Spring in the 15th century? Who is the Person in Shadow? Can Blake protect the book?

Read this book to find out!