Echo McCool - M J Review

As the father of a young baby girl, I've spent the past few months' bedtimes trapped in the pages of picture books plucked from either my own childhood or the current children's charts, dutifully trawling through thinly-veiled allegories and sledgehammer-subtle moralising. However, having recently met the author of this book, who really enthused me about his work, I decided to shelve the likes of "Dinosaur Sleepover" and "Nicky's Noisy Night" for the time being and instead offer my daughter a serialised glimpse of what she's likely be reading in a decade or so's time.

Aimed at what booksellers now label "young adult readers", this novel strives to build a bridge between classic children's literature and the vibrant, much more fantastic adventures that generally see print or go before the movie cameras today. Driscoll's story takes `Famous Five' sensibilities and injects them into a fast-paced, magic-wielding, karate-kicking tale that plays out before the mind's eye in definition far sharper than 1080p. There's still an adventure around every corner, but if they involve Echo then they're far more likely to sate the appetite of most twenty-first century teens than anything in Blyton's arguably outmoded repertoire.

What I think really sets "Echo McCool: Outlaw through Time" apart from its peers though is the quality of Driscoll's world-building. Though some of his finesse might be lost on the youngest of the book's readers, the author is clearly well-versed in medieval philosophies, and that familiarity really bleeds through in his eloquent prose. It's almost a shame that we couldn't have spent longer in Echo's native time, so evident is the author's ardour, but ultimately the book's humour - and, indeed, drama - is borne of Echo being a girl out of time.

Reading a book like this really highlights just how fickle the world of publishing is, and how fine the line is between a Harry Potter or a Lara Croft and an Echo McCool. Will queues of youngsters be camping out in front of stores awaiting the release of "Echo McCool VII", or playing to death the latest Echo McCool video game? I really couldn't say, but based solely on the appeal of this first instalment in the series, the potential is certainly there. Long may the legend continue. 
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