Children’s Fantasy for readers aged 8 and up
240 pages, with over 100 b&w illustrations

For over a thousand years, the Box of Whispers has guarded the most precious treasure in the Land of Een. But when the box is suddenly stolen, young Kendra Kandlestar finds herself swept away on a magical adventure where doors speak in riddles, plants cast dangerous spells, and strange creatures lurk in every shadow. With only a handful of enchanted carrot seeds to help her, will Kendra be able to face these dangers and find the fabled chest? There's only one way to find out: peer inside the Box of Whispers, and enter a world of magic, monsters, and mystery. . . .

Come join Kendra Kandlestar as she learns about loyalty, friendship, prejudice, and the power of facing your fears.

CHAPTER 1

A Dark Shadow

It is entirely possible that you have heard stories like this one before. You know the type: tales of high adventure, where you read about little folk with brave hearts seeking some magic treasure in lands treacherous and unknown. Here danger lurks around every crook and bend in the trail. Here creatures more fierce than your darkest nightmare prowl amidst even darker shadows. And here, they say, sometimes heroes are born.

Well, in that regard, this tale is no different. But what does set this story apart is one tiny frightening thing. I suppose it’s a thing that might not seem frightening at all to you at first. At least not as terrifying as some of the things in those other stories, like an ancient hag, hunchbacked and cackling with three crooked fangs, or a goblin with scaly gray skin and one yellow eye that glints like a bright gold coin in a dungeon’s dim corner. No,this tiny thing doesn’t seem dangerous at all compared to the fiendish villains in those other stories.

And now you wonder what this thing can be. Can you

guess? No? Then let me tell you.

It is, believe it or not, a secret.

A secret, you say? How can a secret be frightening?

Well, we will certainly come to that. But not quite yet. First we must go to the beginning of the story. To get to the beginning, we must go to the land of Een, during a time long ago when the world still remembered some of its magic. These were the days when ancient races such as Dwarves and Elves still roamed the earth. But even then the land of Een was not an easy place

to find. It was tucked in between the cracks of here and there, a tiny, quiet place that the sharpest eye would miss.

Here, at the beginning of our story, a young Een girl was staring up with a frown at a row of unusually large carrots. The girl’s name was Kendra Kandlestar and she was eleven years old. As for the carrots, they were unusually large because they were magic, or more accurately stated, Kendra had used magic to plant them. In fact, she had only planted them that very morning and by noon they had grown taller than the garden shed—with no end in sight. Kendra sighed. It had seemed like a marvelous idea at the time. Now that the carrots were looming over her like so many orange towers, well, she wasn’t so sure. She tugged on her long braids and furled her brow, deep in thought. Tugging helped her think. Th ankfully, she had many braids. Her hair was long and brown, the perfect type for braiding. She had seven braids in all, reaching out from her small head like the rays of a star. Of course, Eens are known for their braiding ability, though I suppose if you have heard of Eens at all, perhaps it’s not their braids that you will recall. Most likely what you may have heard—and if you have not, I will tell you now—is that the Eens are a tiny sort of people, smaller than rabbits, but bigger than mice. They are also a very old people, which is to say they have been in the world for a long time, longer than most. Some scholars and other such people who study these things think Eens are related to Gnomes or Elves. But this is mostly because Eens have pointed ears and seem to know a thing or two about magic. They can talk to animals the same as you and I can talk to each other, and indeed many an Een town is populated with all sorts of forest critters. These are mostly the small friendly type of critters, the ones that aren’t about to go eating Eens for lunch.

Eens come in many shapes and sizes, though it is safe to

say that they are mostly small, mostly friendly, and—most

of all—afraid of the big outside that exists beyond the magic curtain. This magic curtain is like a giant invisible wall that separates and hides the land of Een from the rest of the known world. But we shouldn’t blame the Eens for being so timid. The world that exists beyond the magic curtain lurks with all sorts of dangerous monsters, including Ungers, Krakes, and Goojuns (both the lesser and greater varieties, if you happen to know or care that there is more than one type of Goojun at all). Of course, if you were as tiny as an Een, then you would know that the world is a hard enough place in which to live, never mind Ungers and Goojuns and such. To an Een, a flower might as well be a tree, or a rock or a mountain.

Of course, Kendra’s carrots were another matter altogether. They would have been considered enormous even in our world.

“Uncle Griffinskitch is going to have a perfect fit when he comes home,” Kendra declared, tugging on her braids extra hard.

Then, as if he had been waiting for his name to be mentioned, Uncle Griffinskitch appeared, stepping out from behind one of the giant carrots.

“Kendra!” the old Een bellowed. His voice was deep and loud, though to a person the size of you or me, it would have seemed scarcely louder than a whisper. “What have you done now?”

With a gulp, Kendra turned to face her uncle. “Th-th-the carrots have grown out of control,” she stammered.

“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered. Uncle Griffi nskitch said “humph” a lot, though Kendra had long ago learned that humph didn’t always mean the same thing. For example, a quiet humph means that her uncle was deep in thought, while a louder humph, the sort that came from the bottom of the old Een’s throat, meant that he was more than just a little angry. Then there was the roaring sort of humph that meant . . . well, it usually meant that Kendra had really done it this time. Of course, as long as he was in the humph stage, Kendra knew she was only in a tiny bit of trouble. It was when Uncle Griffinskitch yelled, “Days of Een!” that it meant extra chores for a week. Kendra wan’t sure what “Days of Een” meant. No one else she knew ever said it, though she did find the phrase once in an old book in her uncle’s study. It began, “In the Days of Een, when all were one. . .” But that’s all she could remember, because it had been a long time ago when she read it.

Uncle Griffinskitch glared hard at Kendra with his sharp blue eyes. “Someone,” he said, “has been playing with magic.”

Magic, of course, was something Uncle Griffi nskitch knew about. He was a wizard, after all, and a powerful one at that. It was one of the reasons he sat on the Council of Elders. Kendra liked to think that another reason was his beard, for it was so long and white that she could not help but to think of elders when she looked at it. Some Eens claimed that Uncle Griffinskitch had never once trimmed his beard or long whiskers. Kendra didn’t know about that, but she was pretty sure the beard slowed her uncle down. He never seemed to move faster than the pace of a snail going uphill, despite the help of the short wooden staff that he always clutched in his withered

old hands.

“I thought a little magic might help the carrots grow,” Kendra told her uncle sheepishly.

“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered as he eyed a large book lying in the grass near Kendra’s feet. “What’s this? Gardening with Magic. How many times have I told you to not borrow my books without asking?”

“Yes, but I thought I could surprise you,” Kendra began.

“I’m surprised all right,” Uncle Griffinskitch interrupted.

“Unfortunately, it is a surprise of the unpleasant variety.”

“Er . . . can we stop them from growing?” Kendra asked.

“What’s that?” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered, stroking his

beard and gazing intently upon the carrots. “Yes, of course. A Goojun’s sneeze would do it.”

“A Goojun sneeze!” Kendra cried, tugging on her braids.

“How would we get one? From one of their handkerchiefs?”

“Goojuns aren’t exactly the sort to use handkerchiefs,” Uncle Griffinskitch snorted.

“Oh,” Kendra said. “So what then? I thought it was forbidden to go near Goojuns.”

“Humph,” Uncle Griffi nskitch said. “It’s not forbidden to go near them. Just to help them. Them and any other monster that lives out there.”

He pointed a crooked finger into the distance, towards the magic curtain and the world that lay beyond. Kendra followed his gesture to the horizon, but she could see nothing except the vast blue sky. Of course, this was no surprise. No one could see the magic curtain, not even Uncle Griffinskitch, for it was completely invisible to the naked eye.

Kendra was just about to look away when suddenly she did see something in the sky. It was just a dot, far in the distance, and it made Kendra gulp. She had seen dots in the sky before, of course. They usually just turned out to be birds. But what made Kendra take particular notice of this dot was that it was quickly becoming more than a dot. With every second it was becoming larger and larger, plowing through the clouds like a giant cloak of darkness—and it was heading straight their way!

“What is that thing?” Kendra cried.

Uncle Griffinskitch couldn’t even muster a humph and, if he had, Kendra wouldn’t have heard it anyway. For now a shriek came from the dark shadow, so loud and piercing that the world seemed to come to a sudden stop. If you had heard the shriek, you might have said that it sounded like long fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Or that it was like the blood-curdling cry of a baboon, deep in the wilds of Africa. Or, maybe, you might have said that it sounded like the screech of a skidding car, the type of sound that sends a shiver down your spine and frightens you to your very toes.

This shriek was worse than all of those sounds mixed together. It was so loud that Kendra had to put her hands to her ears just to try to block out the tiniest bit of the bone-jarring howl. It was the type of sound you could feel, the type that had weight. Indeed, it was so heavy that one of the giant carrots even cracked and smashed to the earth in a brilliant burst of orange.

The shadow itself was as large as the shriek was loud, casting a darkness so wide and gloomy that it seemed as if night had suddenly fallen. Kendra and Uncle Griffinskitch craned their necks as the ominous shape tore through the plants and trees above them, but all was black. Then in a flash both the shadow and the sound were gone. The silence was blissful, but it only lasted for a second. In what seemed like one beat of a tiny Een heart, the shadow returned, zooming back with an even louder, more triumphant roar.

Then, just like that, it disappeared all together.

“Days of Een!” Uncle Griffinskitch cried after a few moments. His sharp blue eyes, framed with wrinkles, were still locked on the now-empty sky and his whole body was trembling.

“What was that thing?” Kendra asked.

“Humph,” the old wizard muttered, and it was the kind of humph that Kendra had never heard from her uncle’s lips. It was the kind of humph that suggested grave trouble.

“Hurry,” Uncle Griffinskitch said, casting a worried glance at Kendra. “We must go at once to the Elder Stone!” view abbreviated excerpt only...

2. In Chapter 5, Winter Woodsong calls forth the magic orb, which chooses five characters to go in hunt of the Box of Whispers. Which characters are chosen? According to the orb, why has it chosen these characters?

3. When Kendra first encounters the creature, Trooogul, her first instinct is to run away, but then she decides to help him. Why? Given the fact that Trooogul’s band has just attacked the Eens, do you agree with Kendra’s decision?

4. After helping Trooogul, Kendra decides to keep it a secret. What begins to happen to Kendra as a result of this secret?

5. In Chapter 15, who do Kendra and the rest of the company meet in the marshlands? What is he obsessed with? What words best describe this character?

6. What does Oki always think of when he’s scared? How does this eventually get him into trouble?

7. Throughout the book, Captain Jinx constantly makes fun of Professor Bumblebean’s name. Why do you think this is? What doesn’t she like about the professor?

8. What happens when Kendra first finds the Box of Whispers? What is she tempted to do? What happens when she picks up the box?

9. In Chapter 21, what do we learn about the Box of Whispers? What is the most precious thing, according to Uncle Griffinskitch, that is guarded by the box?

10. Rumor the Red Dragon claims that the box is rightfully his, and that he didn’t steal it. In fact, we soon learn that he thinks of it as his parent! Do you blame Rumor for wanting to have the box?

11.In Chapter 23, Kendra goes before Rumor. What does she learn about Rumor’s birth? How did he get his name? What does she discover about the box that is particularly frightening to her?

12. In Chapter 24, what happens to Kendra when she gives into the fear about her secret? How does Kendra finally conquer her secret? Why is it important that Oki is present?

13. By the end of the book, Kendra has learned that fear has become—literally—a dragon in Een society. What are some “dragons” that you think exist in our society?

14. In Chapter 26, Uncle Griffinskitch says that Kendra helped Trooogul “because she felt it was the right thing to do.” Do you agree with this statement? Did Kendra do what was right?

15. Heroes often leave their homes in fantasy novels to complete a quest or a mission. They often change their character. How has Kendra changed since she left the land of Een?

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