Tennis Shoes among the Nephites
by Chris Heimerdinger
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Covenant Communications ([American Fork, Utah]): 1989. Trade paperback: 268 pages. ISBN-10: 1-57734-467-7 ISBN-13: 978-0898794168 Suggested retail price: $11.95 (US) Tags: prophets; Religious; time travel; war; Youth Tactical strength: [6/10] |
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Tennis Shoes among the Nephites tells the tale of two 13-year-old Mormon boys and an 11-year-old Mormon girl who go back in time to have adventures with Book of Mormon characters. They meet Captain Moroni and help him to defeat Amalickiah, the evil king of the Lamanites.
The children begin exploring a cave near their homes in Wyoming, fall into a subterranean river, and are transported through space and time to ancient America. The children find they can understand all the languages of the Americans and can also be understood -- through the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. Thus the Nephite army employs the children as universal translators as the army mounts a resistance against the Lamanites. Finally, the children are able to return home under the direction of the prophet Helaman, son of Alma the younger.
Heimerdinger follows the same outline of events as the Book of Mormon, but adds many interesting interpretations on the various characters found there. The plot centers on Jim Hawkins -- a boy from a Mormon family who doesn't really have a testimony of his own. Through his adventures and exposure to the great men of the Book of Mormon, he is able to gain a testimony, befriend the geeky kid (Garth -- the other Mormon boy who had been shunned because he was too religious and thus not any fun), fall in love for the first time, help Captain Teancum defeat the army of Amalickiah, rescue his sister who had been captured by the Lamanites, and return home. Quite a rite of passage, and all validated by two prophets, Helaman and Ammon. Surprisingly though, Jim's family never sees or recognizes any of Jim's character changes. Thus the validation is reduced to only what Jim can remember -- which isn't much. Helaman warned the children if they ever revealed the story of their time in ancient America, the memories would be taken from them. Jim writes down the story and thus forgets, thus the only true accomplishment of the entire journey is the lasting friendship between Garth and Jim.
The storytelling is good; Heimerdinger builds suspense well and hooks you into the story. He writes believable young teenagers characters, but the character's problems are not really the central issue in the book. The Book of Mormon "background" takes over, and Jim's problems are somewhat dwarfed. In the resolution of the story, Jim doesn't remember any of the adventure anyway. For juvenile readers, I doubt this presents any problems, but more mature readers will be left wanting a stronger resolution to the problems presented. All in all, a good attempt for a first novel.
On the negative side, Covenant did a terrible job editing the book. Grammar and typesetting errors permeated the text, most of which could have been caught by a trained proofreader. It appears that very little editing took place at all; or that so much editing was done that these errors slipped by. Also, the title page doesn't list the place of publication, and the masthead does not include the Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication data.
For the narrow audience of young adolescent male Mormons who read for entertainment, this is a fine adventure story, but it doesn't offer much more than a quick read filled with action and adventure that don't resolve the character's problems.
