Tamar & PJ: One Giant Adventure is a middle-grades adventure. PJ is a human teenager, and Tamar is a lonely ancient giant. Tamar rescues PJ from what seems like certain death, and after some more adventures, the two become good friends and teammates in the battle against the Vorteh. Besides being an ancient giant, Tamar also has some cool alien technology. (It’s probably not alien, since the Geber, Tamar’s race of pacifist giants, live on earth. Cool non-human technology?)

Geber and the Vorteh have had decades of war, but must keep it secret from humans. Actually, they have to keep their whole existence secret from humans. Human casualties are framed as disappearances, so when the book opens, PJ’s mom has forbidden him from playing or exploring the woods unsupervised, after some children disappeared last summer. Most of the book is set in North Carolina, but, you know, the woods part, not the Cary cul-de-sacs.

Krell is the leader of Vorteh, and he’s a particularly evil member of the evil race.  Besides a dramatic coup in which the evil young heir takes power, the Vorteh are basically just evil. But in a middle-grades supernatural, we can focus on ancient giants, scifi technology, and jokes about small-town cops seeing Bigfoot, and not get too bogged down in the enemy’s motivation.  The Vorteh have combat tech and also have venomous claws. The peaceful Geber have a medicine for this, but it’s for giants, not humans, which leads to some complications…

The story is told from multiple perspectives, a trend in YA that seems to be becoming a trend in middle grades too. In general, it’s not my favorite method, because it can be jarring, but here it does does help readers get to know and connect with different characters. It also helps connect the different threads of the story. Overall,  this is a fun middle-grades adventure, about a boy and his ancient giant friend.