After an extraordinarily gruesome day at school, feeling humiliated by her math teacher, Ashley decides to take a nap on her new deckchair. Little did she know her deckchair was no ordinary one.
Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers' Favorite
"Worlds Away from Home" by Samilla Roberts is an adventure story that transports the readers into the realms of adventure, fantasy, dreams and illusions. Ashley decides to take a nap on her new deck chair after a humiliating time at school with her Math teacher. Everyone has a high expectation of Ashley because of her excellent track record in studies. And today was just not her day. Little does she realize while relaxing on the deck chair that it was no ordinary deck chair. Ashley wakes up to find herself in a new land. She has gone back to the time of dinosaurs. Ashley decides to look for her deck chair which brought her here. She realizes that it is not going to be easy finding her deck chair. While on the lookout for the deck chair, Ashley is taken to many new lands and mysterious places. On her own, she learns to survive in the foreign lands. She learns to take care of herself. She realizes her weaknesses and strength. The journey into unknown lands is also a journey within herself which she had not explored before. She is also given an opportunity to understand her inner strength and she realizes that it is very important to dream big. She understands that her brother too had gone through the same experience while sitting on the deck chair even though his experiences were less stressful and scary from that of Ashley's.
I found the book "Worlds Away from Home" by Samilla Roberts extremely interesting. The adventures and the character sketches in the book can capture the attention and imagination of any reader. Children have a very creative mind and this book stimulates the thoughts of any child. The imaginative characters and narrative are appealing to the adult reader too. The theme of the book has underlying tones of inspiration and it reveals the girl's self-discovery of her inner self and strength. I liked the fact that there is a moral and a message in the book.