Review: Elvia and the Gift of Passion by Ruthy Ballard

Elvia and the Gift of Passion, the third installment of Ruthy Ballard’s Tales by Moons-Light series, is a magical middle grade fantasy that follows plucky Elvia as she travels from Oregon to Africa to the two-mooned planet Urth, where a beautiful purple-skinned, fashion-obsessed Uppie takes her on the trip of a lifetime.

Ten-year-old Elvia Hill’s passion for adventure is endlessly thwarted by her overly protective parents, who won’t even let her ride a bike, but that changes when her mother wins a trip to go on a safari in Tanzania. Although they rarely let their daughter out of their sight at home, they reluctantly allow Elvia to attend the children-only program at the Tembo Safari Lodge while they take a nap.

Sure enough, Elvia’s parents are awakened by a hotel maid screaming that she is gone. Has she been eaten by a lion, was she snatched by a witchdoctor who prizes little girls with bright red hair, or did Elvia disappear in a cloud of purple smoke? While the Hills spend panicked hours searching for Elvia, Uppie Lacie is none too happy to learn that she is charged with guiding the red-haired Earth child to Admar, Urth’s destination island for passionate children.

At first, Elvia is afraid but Lacie is kind and more fun than anyone Elvia has ever met, so soon her fear is replaced with thrills beyond anything Elvia could have ever imagined, including travel on The Sunken Treasure, a submarine where she befriends the Captain’s son, Rats, whose penchant for mystery and mischief rivals her own. However, everything changes again when Elvia and Rats find themselves faced with real danger.

Action-packed and plot driven with enchanting settings and sensational characters, the story is a propulsive read with end-of-chapter cliffhangers, which make it hard to put down. Young readers will be delighted by Elvia’s wild odyssey told in Ballard’s lively prose and entertaining wordplay – vividly setting each scene, and making each character distinct and engaging.

As there is so much going on in Africa and on Urth, and a large number of characters, many of whom have detailed plotlines and backstories, important elements are sometimes neglected and certain storylines fall to the wayside. Ballard corrects for some of these lapses with reminders of incidents that have already taken place, but there is more repetition than necessary, which affects the flow of the story.

A professor and forensic biologist, Ballard provides fascinating and accessible information throughout this middle grade read, particularly when Elvia is learning about the ocean in her scuba and diving bell classes with the gruff, no-nonsense Axe Lander. However, the length and detail in these chapters can slow down or temper the excitement of Elvia’s journey – an issue that is compounded by tangential storylines. Overall, these moments are a clever and effective teaching tool that are woven neatly into the story, but the amount of information could overwhelm some readers.

Those issues aside, Elvia and the Gift of Passion is recommended most of all for the strength of its lead character, an eminently engaging protagonist who readers will want to travel with for other books, watching her grow as a character. Meeting unexpected challenges in strange lands with bravery and gusto in this novel, Elvia discovers resources in herself, learning the importance of empathy, friendship, and family, for a multifaceted and imaginative middle grade read.