Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

Felix is a boy whose parents are a little overprotective of him. And who can blame them? Their son has a potentially fatal heart condition. One wrong move could be Felix's last. Considering the circumstances, his parents are doubly horrified when Felix disappears during a family vacation to Costa Rica.

While his parents fear that Felix might be kidnapped or lost in the jungle, the truth is far stranger. Their son is in another world - one he entered accidentally while crossing the continental divide. In this other world, magic is real and Felix is treated like a legend that sprang from a storybook. After all, the many odd creatures that inhabit this magical world have never seen a human before and find it hard to believe that one is walking among them. Felix spends the majority of THE DIVIDE exploring the magical world, making friends with its bizarre inhabitants, and trying to find a spell that will send him home.

Some of my favorite characters in the book are the brazzles, which are huge, bird-like creatures, much like griffins. The males of the species are obsessed with math. The females are not. This does not make for happy brazzle marriages. Felix also becomes close friends with what is known as a tangle child. Her name is Betony and she is an elf. After getting over the fact that they have really met a legendary human, Felix's new friends are willing to use their understanding of magic to try and help him find his way home.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the magical world is so generous and kind. Felix also runs afoul of some unpleasant creatures, including japegrins, who want to take advantage of his helplessness.

THE DIVIDE is an imaginative book that I highly recommend to lovers of young adult fantasy. It has likeable characters, as well as villains who are easy to despise. It presents a magical world that the reader can see through Felix's eyes. Also, as an added bonus, it has a wonderful cover. Maybe that should not carry much weight, but for some reason, I was delighted by the cover that split down the middle. Overall, I believe that if readers jump to a magical world along with Felix, they will agree that it was well worth the trip. ( )

Felix is 13, but looks younger as he has a heart condition -- and he's in Costa Rica because he wanted to go somewhere exciting "before he died". As he stands on the divide -- between the Atlantic and Pacific -- he passes out -- and at the moment he passes into an alternate world, a world where he is a mythical creature and all the mythical creatures of our world exist -- with funny names. Griffins are called Brazzles there, Unicorns are called Brittlehorns, Elves are called Tangle-people, etc. Felix meets up with a brazzle called Ironclaw and a Tangle-person called Betony -- and together they rescue that world from an unscrupulous merchant foisted untried pharmaceuticals on the public -- and manage to find a cure for Felix's heart problems. Modern lessons in a pre-technological, mythical society. (e.g., that world doesn't know what printing is -- unless someone reads a book Felix brought across with him). Sequels....

The theme of the sickly child who is cured by entering an alternate world is similar Stravaganza by Mary Hoffman.

This book is always a big hit when I booktalk it at my school library, yesterday all six copies were circulated within ten minutes of a booktalk. A young boy, terminally ill with a serious heart defect, is on what his parents consider his last vacation in Costa Rica. He stands on the place where two oceans meet, called "The Divide". He slips through The Divide, and is transported to a world where humans are creature of myth and elfs, satyrs, dragons, unicorns and other creatures that we consider mythical are cold hard fact. In this alternate world, Felix seeks a cure for his heart defect and becomes involved in an epic struggle between good and evil. ( )

A sickly boy faints right across the ciontinental divide...somehow he is exactly in half and exactly between death and life. He wakes to find himself in an alternate world where magid is ordinary and science the rare unbelivable art.

Can he find a cure for himself and a way home?

The world and characters are more vivid and different than in, say, Harry Potter, but the story's not as good. ( )