(''The English photographer, whose face usually suggested a placid draft horse, was openly worried, and he obeyed the orders with the solicitude of a mother.'') Perhaps this is the result of translation, but young readers might be better off waiting to read Allende's more accomplished (and better edited) adult novels.(NEW YORK) – March 10, 2017. These missteps might be overlooked were the writing more artful. ''City of the Beasts,'' published with some fanfare in simultaneous Spanish, English and large-print editions, turns out to be an Allende novel in the extreme, an overloaded story line that takes its raft of cardboard characters on an adventure with too many miraculous turns. Young readers may be awed by some of the magic that ensues - including a pilgrimage to El Dorado and the fountain of youth - but they may also be confused by the complexity of the plot and distracted by the tacked-on lectures about the importance of protecting the environment and finding your inner totem. Then, in an abrupt twist, Alex and Nadia are kidnapped by a tribe called the People of the Mist, and the novel becomes more fantasy than adventure. The journey is treacherous, a kind of ''Death on the Nile,'' with characters bickering and double-crossing, being felled by snakes and poison darts. Joining them is a group that includes a doctor, a shifty entrepreneur, a Brazilian guide and, luckily for Alex, a young woman named Nadia, who becomes his close friend. Alex's situation improves somewhat after his grandmother, a reporter for a nature magazine, whisks him off to the Amazon on a research trip for an article about a mythical monster. He will live with Kate, his fiery grandmother, who once used a syringe to insert hot pepper into chocolates before sending them to her grandchildren. He is being sent to New York while his mother is treated for cancer. It opens with a bang, as its main character, a 15-year-old Californian named Alexander Cold, awakens from one nightmare to find himself living in another. Isabel Allende's first children's novel seems at first to share much with the adult novels that have brought her so much acclaim - a multilayered plot, a large cast of characters, an exotic setting and a strong dose of the fantastic.

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