Gr 5–8—Life is tough for Ben as he struggles to help his mom make ends meet while dealing with the everyday injustices of school and bullies. The last thing he needs is a creepy-eyed kid who appears to have magic powers turning up out of the blue and telling him he has been chosen to save the world from an imminent alien attack. At a high-tech training facility in London, Ben becomes part of the Round Table Reboot, a top-secret mission to recruit adolescents and remake them into modern-day knights. His training is conducted by an original member of King Arthur's Round Table, and by the famous wizard Merlin. Echoes of Rick Riordan's
The Lightning Thief (Disney-Hyperion, 2005) are evident in this action-packed novel. An underdog kid is plucked from his ordinary life and offered a heroic destiny, all the while discovering that legends and heroes of the past are, in fact, still very much part of the present. Readers will enjoy the high-stakes premise and high-tech gadgetry, but will feel the uneven pacing. Too much time is spent explaining that Ben is falling short at his exercises and drills, and after waiting so long for the climactic alien battle, the story ends fairly abruptly. But, for fans of Arthurian legend, save-the-world adventures, and tales of unlikely heroes, the good outweighs the bad.—
Emma Burkhart, Springside School, Philadelphia, PAIn this retelling, Merlin gathers teenagers to form a new group of knights, here to pilot spacecraft to fight alien invaders. Reluctant Ben must look within himself to become the hero he's destined to be. An entertaining (if odd) mixture of Arthurian legend and science fiction, fans of Ender's Game will eat up the well-worn kids-saving-the-day trope.
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