This segment of “Panther Reads” features Dr. Lela Crowder, a Starr’s Mill High School English teacher who just finished “The Book Jumper” by Mechthild Gläser.

“The Book Jumper” is a young adult fantasy novel that follows the adventure of Amy Lennox, a teenage girl visiting her grandmother in Scotland. After Amy’s grandmother requests that she reads more while visiting, it soon becomes evident that she is not like other people. Amy discovers that she is a book jumper, somebody who can quite literally jump into a story and find herself a part of it.

“These young people find out that they have the ability to jump into the pages of a book and affect the story. Or, I should say, be affected by the story,” Crowder said.

Despite how amazing Amy’s ability is, it comes with conflict. Another book jumper somewhere goes into the stories and steals things. The unidentified thief would create huge plot holes in the stories they would jump into, and sometimes, they’d even kill off a character or two along the way. 

Crowder was recommended this novel by one of her students. After reading the novel, she thought it would be nice to recommend it to her other students seeing as the novel has something in it for anyone who likes to read. 

“It’s got a lot of literary allusions in it, so people who are kind of geeky-book nerds would really like it,” Crowder said. 

Combining all of your favorite childhood fairytales and literary classics, Gläser creates an adventurous novel with an endless supply of murder mysteries and young love that readers everywhere envy.