Toby King and the Utility Belt by Sharon Giltrow (GiltWrote Publishing), RRP $15.00 Junior Fiction ISBN 9-781764-547314
Reviewed by Susan Hancy
After reading book 1 of The Utility Belt Series
featuring Samara Rubin, my daughter and I couldn’t wait to read book 2: Toby
King and the Utility Belt. In book 1, Toby had been introduced as the class
villain – a loner who’d been bullying Samara to relinquish her lunch to him
every day and who then stole Samara’s utility belt. But an unexpected moment of
heroism at the end of book 1 has left open the possibility that there is
another side to Toby, and book 2 gives us the chance to see what makes him tick.
The first four chapters of Toby King and the
Utility Belt retell the climax and conclusion of Samara Rubin and the Utility Belt, only this time it’s told from Toby’s point of
view. We find out why he’s been stealing Samara’s lunch. We learn that he’s relatively
new to Samara’s school, and even he is shocked that he’s being perceived
as the class bully. (At his last school, he was the one being bullied). He’s
aware that lies pop out of his mouth faster than his brain can keep him in
check and that doing so is wrong. But he’s at a loss for how he can go about making
friends, and that’s where the utility belt comes in. He’s witnessed his
classmates in awe of what Samara can do with her belt, and he sees the belt as
his quick ticket to turning those classmates into friends. But despite Samara’s
advice that building friendships requires investment, Toby’s poor decisions
result in him learning this the hard way.
All in all, the author, Sharon Giltrow, has done a
great job in turning a character that we, as readers, started off loathing into
someone we care for; willing Toby to make the right choices (he often doesn’t!)
and simultaneously testing our own judgement about what we’d do in his
situation.
Then, just when we think book 2 and possibly the
series is wrapping up, we’re sprung a surprise. We’re introduced to a new
character, Kaya, who has the possibility of qualifying for her own utility
belt. Just how, I won’t reveal, but we’re left with enough of a hook for what
could possibly follow to have us wanting to know: when are we going to get book
3?
