For an author of Allende's caliber, this is a major disappointment.No sense of place or person. 100 pages into it and there was not one character with whom I could identify or care about. The professor is an unbelievably cliched stereotype. The environmental message is painfully obvious and annoying. The earlier reviewer correctly hit all the reasons NOT to waste your time on this book.I DON'T recommend this to any Harry Potter fans, instead suggest Lloyd ALexander, Brian Jacques, Garth Nix, Philip Pullman, Susan Cooper, or Tamara Pierce, to name a few.