OK, Heimerdinger, what is this? The teenage version of Gerald Lund's "The Work and the Glory" series?
Just as the adults of the LDS Church have impatiently waited for each installment of the continuing saga of the fictional Steed family, teens have been caught up in the fanciful tale of Jim Hawkins that began with "Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites."As a teenager, Jim, his sister Jennifer and his friend Garth Plimpton, traveled through a cave and time simultaneously. Their latest adventures ended in the cliff-hanging "Tennis Shoes and the Feathered Serpent" when Gadianton robbers traveled forward in time to snare the now-grown up Jim Hawkins and his three children in a web of intrigue in the most dreaded time in Book of Mormon history.
Yet a new reader could pick up "Book Two: The Conclusion" and slip right into the story. Heimerdinger's Jim Hawkins tells his part of the story and in italics, his daughter Melody's narrative unfolds. "I was abducted and tossed into the trunk of a Lincoln Continental. My kidnappers drove all night until we reached a cave at the top of a mountain. This cave, I came to find out, served as a passageway to the ancient world of the Nephites and Lamanites.
"I had no idea what my abductors wanted from me. I was told only that they were taking me to be reunited with my Uncle Garth, who was being held captive in a faraway city called Jacobugath."
While Melody is in the hands of the Gadianton, Jacob of the Moon, her father is racing with Nephite companions to try to rescue her.
But Jim Hawkins' journey has its own dangers. He and his son, Harry, encounter a creature called curelom in the Book of Ether. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Standing on the hillside less than a hundred yards above us was a creature that inhabited our modern-day world only in fantasies and nightmares. How was this possible? It was like stepping through the movie screen of `Jurassic Park.' Every book I'd ever read claimed that woolly mammoths had been extinct by this date - extinct for thousands of years!"
Heimerdinger's fast-paced novel will keep his teenage readers enthralled in its action. Hollywood may have depicted some exciting prison breaks using helicopters - but Melody's breathtaking rescue from the prison island in Jacobugath in 33 A.D. just begs for celluloid. (Calling Kieth Merrill!)
It's one thing to write a time-travel novel that can take modern-day Mormon teens into Book of Mormon times. Heimerdinger has done that and well. But in this fourth book, he's stepped up to a whole new level. Imagine a young writer who excels in young adult writing taking on Third Nephi.
Yet Heimerdinger seems as though he has been preparing for just this task: to put fictional characters into that moment when the "other sheep" met their Messiah.
With his children gathered around him, Jim Hawkins listened to his Savior pray to the Father for them all.
"I was moved and stirred and transformed by the Savior's words in a way that no prayer had ever affected me before, nor would ever do again. That prayer penetrated the essence of our existence, our very chromosomes and genes."
The author's notes tell readers that Heimerdinger joined the LDS Church at BYU. While he was on his mission in Florida, Heimerdinger relates that he "had a dream about some kids traveling back in time and meeting the heroes of the Book of Mormon."
With more than 200,000 "Tennis Shoes" books in print, Heimerdinger seems to have made a dream come true in making scripture come alive for Mormon teens.