Sentinel: City of Destiny by Landel Bilbrey

One enemy. 

          Two brothers. 

                   And a perilous quest in search of four mystical keys …

     Keys that will unlock the gate of Sentinel, the timeless city of destiny—the place that all followers of the Light must one day find.  Only true warriors of good King Deus can call it home.  

     From Gelandesprung, through the mysterious forest of Gravenwood, across the barren plain of Gall, and beyond the burning sands of Mammon, they will travel. But traveling will be only half their journey, for hidden throughout the regions of Callow are the keys.  And to complete their mission into Sentinel, they will need all four. Even if the valiant brothers should find the hallowed walls that surround the city, without the keys their struggle will be for naught.  

     But Azrael awaits.  Driven by an ancient vow to stop any boy from entering the sacred city.  His plans are evil, his minions are many, and his aim is sure… Keep all seekers, at all costs, from finding the royal keys.  

     Even so, they embark.  They search.  And, eventually… One of them will fight to take hold of what is rightfully his—a place of honor at the mighty king’s table.

 

When I first heard about Sentinel: City of Destiny, I thought it would be a great read aloud for family devotions. It sounded a bit like Little Pilgrim’s Progress and we read that in  homeschool several years back. So I thought this book, which caught my attention by focusing on boys learning spiritual principles and how to become a “man” in a fun fantasy setting, would capture the attention of my 13, 10 and 7 year old. I knew it would be a challenge for my 5 year old daughter to sit through it and pay attention to the story, but I was willing to give it a try.

I immediately enjoyed the first few chapters with the good and bad twin, one choosing the right way, one choosing the wrong and the allegory was easy to see and enjoy. My ten year old embraced our Sentinel family devotions, and answered the questions in the handy chapter lessons in the back of the book, but it was a struggle for some of my other children to pay attention and each session was wrought with angst. I knew each child could get something from the book, but knew family devotions wasn’t the place. I shouldn’t have been surprised, actually. Family devos was always a struggle (still is) in finding content that held the interest and spiritual/intellectual appropriateness of kids ages 5 – 13.

After a couple of chapters (and months) I gave up my idea of a  family study, but I didn’t give up on Sentinel. Having read a fourth of the book already, and confirming my thoughts on how it reminded me of Little Pilgrims Progress in the writing and allegory, I decided to give it to my ten, almost eleven year old. He made it through the book enthusiastically and the following is his review which after reading, I would definitely recommend this book for boys ages 5 through 12.

Joey (11)

Sentinel is a book about two brothers (twins) that go on a journey to reach Sentinel, the city of manhood. Along the way they go through different obstacles that represent challenges every boy will have to face throughout their life to become a true man.

Jerol is godly and always reads scriptures and makes the right decisions. Jadon never reads the scriptures and makes the wrong decisions. Sometimes Jerol makes the wrong choices but he calls on “prayer” his bird, and it gets him out of trouble.

On the way to the city, Jerol and Jadon have to collect four keys. Vision. Courage. Integrity. Service. I learned that vision is about what God wants you to do and not what you think is the best thing to do. Any decision you make, you should call on God. Integrity is thinking and acting the way God wants you to.

One thing I liked about the book is that in certain places there is an asterisk by some words and it means you can look up the definition in the back of the book so it can help you understand a little bit better about the challenges they face. For example, sometimes there will be a name of a city or person to look up and it helps you understand about that person’s character. There are these two evil girls named Jezebel and Delila and in the back of the book it defines their names so you know more about them.

I think of Sentinel as a modernized version of Little Pilgrims Progress. I think boys should read it because it could help them make the right decisions as they go through manhood.