Plan B from Zone 5

Digital moonbeams and raucous humor in Sally Altschuler’s updating of “The Fabulous Five” for 2004.

By : Steffen Larsen

Mystery series
The product is called Zone 5. It is planned as a collaboration between Sesam publishers, test groups of children and Sally Altschuler Consult. There has been a lot of tinkering and hammering with the concept behind this project, which has been to find a way of dragging serial books such as The Fabulous Five into our millennium. To begin with, however, there will be only four children in Zone 5.

The first two volumes in the series are called Saturn og skumbananer (Saturn and Candy Bananas) and Ballade med Bit (The Bother with Bit). The titles indicate a fluid blend of software and fun. There will be a CD with every book. This contains the mythological prehistory of Zone 5 as well as a game that many 5-year olds will probably find too easy. You can read more at www.zone5.biz, but the same thing happens there. The next two volumes will come out this autumn. However, it is clear that the multimedia ambitions have been greater than the abilities. Hence, Plan B. Still, it was a good choice to hire Teddy Kristiansen as illustrator.

The series is about four children verging on the age of 12. Two boys and two girls. They have different traits and talents – there is always one of them ready to jump out of a church tower or another to solder something or another to play keyboard. And they all have cell phones! Which are here called POWs and can do quite a lot. The technical side of the books is extremely well conceived. In the first book, they film moonbeams digitally and awaken voices of the past. In the second book, they awaken a slumbering robot – a real slyboots – who rounds out their number to 5. In the old days, it would have been a dog.

Sally Altschuler is surfing in fine style. He bubbles with ideas and all the circuits are firing. There is not a dull moment to be found. The author is witty in a heavy-handed sort of way that boys, in particular, like. Instead of making Jakob, Maya, Ziggy and Kimi into vibrant individuals, they have become perfect types. And there is no time for hanky-panky. Only for crime. Ziggy’s mother may be a bit overdone in all her new age splendor. But she is still a good egg!

The spiritual center of the zone is a store called Fish and Video. The hotel is called Titanic and is modeled accordingly. Most inhabitants of the Zone 5 metropolis are open and kind, but a cultish mysticism permeates everything. So, out with the camera!

How many authors write with a completely pure heart? That would be poets! So, is there something wrong with a writing project being guided, digested and directed? No, right?! This project, at least, gets 5 bananas for technical execution and great packaging.

This article was first published in the daily newspaper Politiken on 3 April 2004, section 4, page 11.

Translated by Russell Dees