Leo Lomax and his brother, Hollis, lost their parents in a plane crash and are sent to live with their father's step- brother, Crane. Crane imports and sells mysterious and expensive artifacts and lives in a futuristic building in the run-down depths of Brooklyn. Leo turns 13 the day they move and learns that he has a special ability to bend sound which means that when he touches certain objects, he can hear their past.

For example, he knows that a girl's pen was a gift from her father. But Leo's yearning to find a purpose for this gift takes him on an adventure to a special island.

In SOUND BENDER, Lin Oliver and her son, Theo Baker, do a nice job with Leo's 13-year-old character, giving him enough slang without going overboard. Baker, a deejay, has a strong interest in sound like Leo, and this comes through. The writing style is definitely more toward action than literary, but while a little out there, the tale is believable enough and will keep your interest. While it may appeal to boys more than girls, I certainly think girls, especially those with an interest in science and sound, will enjoy it.

Leo's character is the most well-developed along with his mentor, Jeremy and his best friend, Trevor, a tall boy who opts to study science rather than play basketball. The lesser characters like Crane and his staff have a more cartoonish quality, but as Leo is the center of the story, SOUND BENDER as the beginning of a series and would be interested in seeing more stories of Leo's adventures.

Book Summary

A roaring, supernatural adventure that spans New York, and the globe!After their parents' plane goes down over the ocean, Leo and his brother Hollis are forced into the custody of their rich and enigmatic uncle Crane, a dealer of rare and probably illicit antiques. But almost as soon as he's settled--or as close to settled as he can get in the bleak Brooklyn mansion, surrounded by his uncle's dubious staff--Leo receives a mysterious package his father put together long ago, to be opened on his 13th birthday. With the package, Leo discovers he has an amazing ability. He can hear the history of any object by touching it. But when Leo finds a strange helmet buried among his uncle's artifacts, and hears a pained cry coming from it, a mystery unravels as to its origin.