Uki and the Ghostburrow Written by Kieran Larwood. Reviewed by Ivan, Age 10

I am a massive Kieran Larwood fan and have read all of his books that he has written so far. Uki and the Ghostburrow is the sixth book in the series called The Five Realms. The best way to sum up the whole of the Five Realms series is that it is like The Lord of the Rings but with rabbits!

The first three books are about Podkin One Ear and it’s good if you read those books before the Uki books. Ghostburrow is the last of the three books about Uki. I think it is the perfect finale though I won’t give too much away.

If you haven’t read the Five Realms series so far, it does luckily give a short description of what happened in the first two Uki books at the start but I can tell you that Uki is a special rabbit who has been given the power to live again even after he dies. He is currently on a journey to capture evil spirits and encase them in crystals. At the start of this book he has captured two of the spirits. Ghostburrow is about his quest to try and capture the last and worst of the spirits – the spirit of death.

I think Ghostburrow had some good characters such as Jori, Coal and Zarza. I liked these three characters because they are all so different from each other. They are all rabbits but they all have different personalities, different religions and different ways of dealing with problems, just like any human character.

My favourite character overall in the book is Necripha. She is pretty much the main baddie of every Uki book and is always trying to stop Uki. She always thinks a lot of herself even though she often fails which is generally quite funny yet she’s still intimidating.

The plot has quite a fast pace which is uplifting, heartwarming and downright scary at the same time. It has a lot of tense moments when you think Uki is about to die. I won’t say if he survives or not. That would be telling.

I would say this book is aimed at ages eight to twelve years, but younger children would probably enjoy having it read to them. I have a friend who is much younger than me but he loves his mum reading the Five Realms books to him and she loves them too! If you have liked books such as Thomas Taylor’s Malamander series or The Hobbit you would like Uki and the Ghostburrow. You might think it’s an animal type book but it’s really a fantasy book. The fact that the characters are all rabbits doesn’t have that much effect. You mostly forget they are rabbits (but sometimes you just forget you’re human and think you’re a rabbit too!).

If you get this book and like it you should check out Kieran Larwood’s website because he puts up loads of cool activities like card games to make, map drawing and other games and drawing things to do with the Five Realms.

I was sad when I finished this book. I didn’t want to read the last chapter so it would last longer but I had to write this review as quickly as possible so now I’m hoping there will be more Five Realms books out soon.