The First Escape is the story of the mischievous twins Saskia and Sadie Dopple and their friend Eric Morrisey Ganger. The twins live at the orphanage-school under the horrible headmaster. But their life is torn apart when Saskia is adopted by a famous author, Muzz Elliott, while Sadie is left at the orphanage. How far is Sadie willing to go to be with her sister? And what secrets do Muzz Elliott and her strange old house hold?The book is written in a strange mix of script and graphic novel that brings it to life effectively and adds to the novel in a way that neither script nor comics can do separately. The script focuses on description, highlighting aspects of objects and scenes that a photo, showing everything cannot. The graphic portion of the book shows cut and mysterious characters. It can show what a character is doing while talking without breaking away from the dialogue while eliminating the need for dialogue tags. I love all the drawings and have never read a book quite like it!Also, the story was intriguing and unpredictable, full of danger, adventure, and mystery. The characters where unique and interesting.Some things I would comment on include the three teens’ behavior. They disobey authority, play mean practical jokes, lied, and steal. Some of the behavior was under threat of death, but not all of it. Also, the adults, except two, were mean, crazy, weird, or just plain evil. Is that what we want our children to think of s from reading the examples in this book?For another thing, there is a séance and other creepy or haunted things in this book. All of these things are explained as optical illusions, megaphones, and wires—magic tricks. One woman teaches one of the twins a little about the Creator, who she calls the Companion. This woman eventually vanishes before their sight and they think she is an angel.In all, the book is a fun, mysterious adventure that I think every kid will enjoy…if they can get past he the bad examples. How are these not more well known? The First Escape is brilliant!I stumbled upon the first in the Dopple Ganger Chronicles by chance. Glad I did. Very enjoyable and I loved the half novel-half graphic novel aspect of it. As a Potter fanatic I would disagree with the "Hotter than Potter" tag though. It lacks the certain magic of Harry Potter, but comparing firsts in the series, I did find it more suspenseful than the Philosopher's Stone. G.P Taylor knows how to keep the reader interested in the story, J.K. Rowling knows how to make you wish you were in the story.
What do You think about The First Escape (2006)?
Kinda like for children. I'm surprised to open the book and saw drawings like comics.
—wormsbey
Really cool graphics and an interesting plot
—SillaMonster
