Rating: 4.5
Description: For as long as he can remember, Chrisopher Chant has been visiting the Anywheres while he sleeps at night. So when his Uncle Ralph starts taking an interest in him and asks him to run a few errands in the other worlds, Chrisopher is proud to help. The errands themselves are pretty boring - just loading things from the Anywheres to bring back to his world - but Chrisopher quickly strikes up a friendship with his uncle's man, Tacroy, and with a young girl acting as a goddess in human form in one of the worlds. But the Anywheres are dangerous, and Christopher has several close calls, including a spear through the chest and being burned by a dragon. Coincidentally, a similar incident always happens in his own world after being injured in an Anywhere (being impaled by a curtain pole and a fire spell gone wrong). Eventually, Christopher begins to realize that he's not just an ordinary boy, and his Uncle Ralph's "errands" aren't as innocent as he had thought. In the end it's up to Christopher to stop his uncle's scheme and save all the worlds from disaster.
Review: A prequel to "Charmed Life", but well able to stand on its own, "The Lives of Christopher Chant" is a delightfully fun book with plenty of adventure, and some humor thrown in. Each of Christopher's Anywheres is unique, and the idea of multiple worlds is logical and well thought out. Christopher is a great character, though he does sometimes act younger than his age would suggest (I often found myself thinking of him as a six-year-old when he was supposed to be about twelve). However, the age problem doesn't really detract from the story at all, and the story is wonderful. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in fantasy, aged pre-teen to senior citizen.