The Dream Traveler’s Quest, Book 3

Well, we’ve made it through the third book of four in this Dream Traveler’s Quest, and my kids are vastly interested in the outcome for Theo and his pals. The Dekkers have done well pulling in these young readers (a.k.a. listeners), supplying a series that includes middle-school drama plus fantasy, danger, a hunt for five seals, spiritual overtones, and semi-humorous cuddly bats.

Before this book began, I tried guessing who might be joining Theo on his next quest into the Other Earth. I was wrong. Instead of the obvious choice (who makes his own way there in the end of this book), a new character makes an appearance, Danny the blind kid from school. The Dekkers have an important reason for introducing Danny to the series, because “blindness to the light” is the essence of the third seal for which the boys are searching.

It’s pretty cool, the way the authors show Danny receiving his sight for the first time in the fantasy world. I definitely don’t speak for the visually-impaired, of course, but I thought they handled the process well, treating the sudden vision more like a “Huh, that’s pretty cool” for Danny rather than a “I’ve been missing so much!” It was respectful: suddenly gaining his vision didn’t cause Danny to face the world stronger and better, just differently. He was the same person with vision in the fantasy world as he was without it in the real world. The implications were hidden but present, and the authors communicated it well.

This installment included a few terrifying scenes, which I think might have scared my kids a bit (it would have scared me at age 10-12, I guarantee it!). There was one scene, for example, where the boys were stuck on a platform surrounded by black water which itself was surrounded by mirrors. Monsters began banging and clawing at them from the other side of the mirrors, at least until the boys could find the glasses that could allow them to see past th.is vivid fear to the truth. Visions in mirrors is a staple of scary movies (I’m averse to ever watching anything in the horror genre, so I ain’t using that word!), so picturing a monster of any sort banging towards me from inside a mirror I’m looking at is a terrifying thought. I haven’t heard my kids mention it since we read that scene, but I guess: Reader Beware. Ted Dekker is very much being Ted Dekker in this book.

The spiritual thrust of this book is getting the right vision of the world, looking through the lens of love instead of fear, focusing on the light rather than the darkness. The Jesus character tells the boys that they can wear either the glasses of the world or the glasses of the Kingdom (85), and that seeing correctly will cure them of their blindness.

I’ll reserve any final considerations of the “theology” of this series for after the final book, because so far we’ve only been seeing steps towards the conclusion. I had taken issue with something referenced in Book 1: Into the Book of Light that was apparently corrected in Book 2: The Curse of Shadowman. It will be interesting to see where Book 4: The Final Judgment takes Theo, Danny, and Annelee. My kids are excited to find out, and I guess I’ll admit that I am too.

©2023 E.T.

Read More from Ted Dekker:

• The Promise (2005)
• Adam (2008)
• Into the Book of Light (2018)
• The Curse of Shadowman (2018)
• The Garden and the Serpent (2018)
• The Final Judgment (2018)