After having first read "Prince Ombra", also by MacLeish and is now in the top 5 of my favorite books of all time,I knew I had to get my hands on another one of his books. "The Man Who Wasn't There" was an enjoyable ride into the depths of the human mind with all its ups and downs, and ins and outs. This story takes you to a place you can't help wanting to go while at the same time you know you shouldn't be there. It was good, clean mystery, mayham, and MacLeish.

In this age of writers being paid by the inch, how refreshing to find a title so pure in goal and execution. "Prince Ombra" succeeds as both fiction for pleasure, and as parable. As an explanation of the myth of "The Hero" told against a backdrop of darkness and light in our world, it has no peer (save perhaps Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes"). A child may read this book and cry in horror, but also in sadness and, ultimately, joy. To feel at its conclusion, that there will always be hope in the world, and sometimes, the greatest hero can be the smallest child.

I read this book yesterday for the first time and I think it is one of the best books that I have ever read. I literally couldn't put it down and read it in a span of only a few hours. A really great read. While I would recommend this book to many people, I am extremely surprised that it is mostly recommended for small children and as a bedtime story no less.

True, the main character is an eight year old boy, but that doesn't make the story a children's book. If that were true you would also have to believe that movies like Witness and books like The Shining were aimed at an audience consisting of small children, which certainly isn't true. While this book isn't exactly a horror novel to you and me, it could seem one for your average seven to eight year old. Whereas books like Harry Potter are about fantastic and fanciful things that even small children know aren't real, Prince Ombra is tied very much into the real world and real problems that ordinary people face every day. It would be easy for a small child to become convinced that the story was real and that maybe some horrible supreme evil being is out to get him too.

Also, there are many references to stories and characters that small children have most likely never been introduced to. How many children of seven to eight years know who Agamemnon, Achilleus, Hektor, or Odysseus are? Or know ANY of the actual King Arthur tales? How many are well versed in Japanese or Native American mythology? A very precious few, I'm sure, and those very stories are a large part of the backbone of this novel. There is no way you can possibly realise the true feeling the author was trying to convey without having at least a little knowlege of these things, as well as the general "hero's journey" structure of most myths and legends.

In short, children may find this book interesting, and a lot of them may not be afraid or worried about it, as I think they would be. But the truth is that there is no way they can really understand the book when they have been introduced to so little of it's content. If you want your children to read it and understand it, you should wait until they're a little older. In the meantime get them ready for it by reading them a few myths and legends. They're just as entertaining and far less threatening than Prince Ombra could be for them.

This book takes place in the late 20th century in a town on the northern coast of America, called Stonehaven. Here a bright, slightly crippled 8-year-old boy (Bentley Ellicott) has been chosen before birth to combat the evil in this world, like so many heroes before him. With him are two friends who will help prepare him for his destiny--Slally Drake, a 7-year-old "mute" girl who is Bentley's rememberer (a person who passes on history to weaken Prince Ombra's power on Earth), and Dr. Dietrich Kreistein, an old German psychologist who teaches Bentley through myths and stories how to defeat Prince Ombra. Out of all the characters in this book, Dr. Kreistein has to be my favorite.

As one reviewer on the back of this book wisely put it, Prince Ombra is "a combination of Tolkien and Stephen King". Although I've never read anything by Tolkien, there is a sense of fantasy and magic in this story. As for King, this book reminded me of Needful Things with the intertwining of small-town life. So, if you're a fan of either writer, then I highly recommend this book. It's a very interesting look at the continuous struggle between good and evil--and the overwhelming power of hope.