Author Description

Product Description Looked at from the outside, the annual summer camp in the countryside seems idyllic. But for Kenny, a boy with a Samurai soul, it is no more than a prison camp, run by a sadistic woman who is sometimes helped by her salacious son, Christian. To escape the adults, Kenny and his “samurai” friends sneak out to the forest to build a secret castle. It’s off-limits to the girls, but a female camper named Kerstin begs Kenny to show her the castle. But suddenly she disappears, and Kenny realizes something terrible must have happened to her. Something that points to the old woman who runs the camp but even more so to her strange, creepy son. From Publishers Weekly Edwardson’s tale (Skyscape, 2013) has been translated from the Swedish by Per Carlsson, but listeners won’t notice the foreign venue except for some unusual names. Twelve-year-old Kenny is at a camp for poor kids where the food is awful and the counselors are unfriendly. A self-schooled student of Japanese warriors, he leads a troop of samurai building a castle in the woods. Kenny is a hero coming of age, full of compassion and reckless pride. His troop is at war not only with a rival gang but also with the grown-ups, especially Matron. Kenny befriends Kerstin, a clever and funny girl, when she’s upset after her parents visit. They are building a cautious friendship, but then Matron’s son does something that causes Kerstin to run away. What begins as a typical tale of camp angst turns into a tense stand-off. Nick Podehl does an outstanding job voicing all the characters, from Sausage, Kenny’s cowed protégé, to Matron, the evil authority figure. Upbeat music bookends each CD. This is a great listen for boys, especially those who hated being sent to summer camp. The plot has tension, depth, and a champion worth cheering for. –C.A. Fehmel, October 2013 About the Author Åke Edwardson is a Swedish author of novels, short stories, plays, detective fiction, and is a three-time