Title La forêt aux mille et un périls Series --- Author Denis Côté Cover Art Stéphane Poulin Publisher Soulières Éditeur - 2014 First Printing --- Category Middle Grade Warnings None Main Characters Maxime, don Quichotte, Rossinante Main Elements Wizards, vampires and more Website ---

Trois tomes réunis en un seul volume où l'on narre la rocambolesque aventure fantastique et anachronique de Maxime, un jeune cycliste égaré que Don Quichotte de la Mancha a sommé d'être son écuyer. Ces compagnons d'infortune poursuivent la mission de délivrer Merlin d'un sort funeste jeté par la sorcière Viviane. Ils croisent en chemin les membres de la bande de Robin des Bois, devenus des vampires redoutables et sans pitié, des hommes de pierre, et découvrent une fabuleuse épée plantée dans un rocher et ayant appartenu au roi Arthur. Munis de cette arme légendaire, ils se dirigent vers la Tour de Verre, où est enfermé le magicien. En route, l'hydre, les centaures, les affres de l'hiver et un terrible cyclope sont autant d'épreuves à traverser pour atteindre leur but.

This was an odd little book. I got a free copy of the third book in the trilogy so sat on it for a while until I could go to the library to get all three books in one. So we have Maxime who follows a white stag into a forest during his summer vacation. He run into don Quixote, a vampiric band of merry men, and other strange things while on a quest to rescue Merlin from a glass tower (I liked the interpretation of what a glass tower should look like). The relationship between Maxime and don Quixote was fun to see grow, the plot was just a series of challenges Maxime needed to overcome, and the ending...I felt something was missing. Did Maxime imagine the whole thing, did time even pass while he was in the forest, did he tell the story to his family to explain his absence? It just ends rather abruptly.

The 3-in-1 edition didn't have any illustrations but the standalone ones did, think having the illustrations would have been nice, to help visualize some of the stranger bits.

One thing that threw me off was that Maxime knew all about don Quixote...now I know who he is too but I've not read the book, didn't know the name of his horse, etc. That Maxime knows Robin Hood and Merlin made sense for a ten year old to be familiar with but I struggled a bit to believe he'd be able to guess at the identity of Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance.