Early ReviewersP.W. Cross

A lonely boy with a secret life in a parallel world and a panicked cry for help!

​The strange man that ferries Joey, the lonely boy, into the parallel world (the source of all ideas) whisks him away to a crisis meeting with a mysterious seer, a tenacious dwarf, and his long-lost best buddy. A sweet dwarf friend of theirs has been captured by a crazed giant deep in the Digs, a mountainous region controlled by a horde of bloodthirsty trolls. Their friend’s life is in the giant’s hands—as is knowledge that will prevent the misery and death for future children in Joey’s world!

The dangers of rescue are great and will place all their lives in peril. Will Joey venture into the Digs yet again, after having barely survived a previous trip?

PW Cross knows what his readers will like—hidden worlds, crazy characters, and danger!

—Tim Grundmann, an author of Disney’s Doug Chronicles series

*** The Idea Miners Trilogy Summary ***

The Idea Miners trilogy is written for middle-grade readers. It’s a fantasy action tale packed with excitement and mystery that young readers love. Woven throughout the books are historical facts meant to spark an interest and appreciation in the reader for the great gifts of ideas to the world.

Overview

Structure: Each book is structured as a mysterious adventure with a revealing epilogue. The adventures involve youth from our world traveling with seers, dwarfs, and elves into a dangerous world populated with bloodthirsty trolls and fierce giants to retrieve yet-to-be discovered ideas. The epilogues summarize the discovered ideas that are obliquely hinted at in the adventures.

Premise: The premise is that all ideas originate in a parallel world called the Land of Lights (LoL). The ideas are contained in buried, glowing spheres called logos. The logos must be mined and transported to our world, which is called the Land of Harvesters (LoH). It’s only in the LoH that the logos can be understood and used by educated individuals called harvesters.

Point of view: The point of view is that of a young boy named Joey, a farm boy from 1750. (The year was chosen so the ideas ‘discovered’ are yet to be known in his world.)

Characters: The LoL is populated with logologists (overseers of discovered logos), miners (giant creatures with glowing eyes that manage the logo mining sites), seers (members with the power to visualize the contents of a logo), diggers (dwarfs skilled at digging for buried logos), trolls, elves, and others.

Miners: Miners have a special skill to sense the buried logos but are susceptible to their hidden ideas, causing them to take on bizarre characteristics of the yet-to-be discovered ideas.

Children: Young children from our world are needed to assist in persuading the miners to release their finds. The miners view those from the LoH as royalty and treat them as honored guests revealing things to them that they’ll tell no others.

Pyramid of Knowledge: The longterm objective of those working in the LoL is to complete the Pyramid of Knowledge. Once the last idea, called the One, is harvested, the LoL and the LoH will merge, and all war, disease, and famine will end.

Individual book summaries

The Lost Lake Dig: In the first book, The Lost Lake Dig, the protagonist, Joey, is confronted by a strange man who transports him into the LoL where he joins an expedition with his long-lost best friend, a seer, and two digger dwarfs. A miner is acting strangely and is believed to have found an important logo.

The Twisted Tree Dig: In the second book, The Twisted Tree Dig, Joey returns to the LoL to rescue a young dwarf friend who has been captured by a crazed miner under the influence of a logo.

The One: In the final book of the trilogy, The One, Joey attends a dwarf wedding in the LoL and is stranded as the trolls revolt and threaten the future of the worlds by destroying the mining operations throughout the LoL.

Small sampling of the ideas and harvesters presented in the books

Computer technology: Professor John Atanasoff and Mr. Clifford Berry (Atanasoff-Berry Computer), Charles Babbage

Flight: Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier (balloonists), Wilber and Orville WrightMedical: Edward Jenner (vaccination), Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin

Communications: Pony Express, Samual Morris (Morris Code), Alexander Graham Bell

Governance: Pericles (democracy)

Earth Science: Sir Isaac Newton (gravity), Benjamin Franklin (electrical fire)

Spy-craft: Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall, William Stephenson

Library science: Melvil Dewey (Dewey Decimal System)

Printing systems: Printing systems: woodblock printing, Gutenberg Press

Miscellaneous: kerosene lamp, aluminum, the match

A lonely boy with a secret life in a parallel world and a panicked cry for help!

​The strange man that ferries Joey, the lonely boy, into the parallel world (the source of all ideas) whisks him away to a crisis meeting with a mysterious seer, a tenacious dwarf, and his long-lost best buddy. A sweet dwarf friend of theirs has been captured by a crazed giant deep in the Digs, a mountainous region controlled by a horde of bloodthirsty trolls. Their friend’s life is in the giant’s hands—as is knowledge that will prevent the misery and death for future children in Joey’s world!

The dangers of rescue are great and will place all their lives in peril. Will Joey venture into the Digs yet again, after having barely survived a previous trip?

PW Cross knows what his readers will like—hidden worlds, crazy characters, and danger!

—Tim Grundmann, an author of Disney’s Doug Chronicles series

*** The Idea Miners Trilogy Summary ***

The Idea Miners trilogy is written for middle-grade readers. It’s a fantasy action tale packed with excitement and mystery that young readers love. Woven throughout the books are historical facts meant to spark an interest and appreciation in the reader for the great gifts of ideas to the world.

Overview

Structure: Each book is structured as a mysterious adventure with a revealing epilogue. The adventures involve youth from our world traveling with seers, dwarfs, and elves into a dangerous world populated with bloodthirsty trolls and fierce giants to retrieve yet-to-be discovered ideas. The epilogues summarize the discovered ideas that are obliquely hinted at in the adventures.

Premise: The premise is that all ideas originate in a parallel world called the Land of Lights (LoL). The ideas are contained in buried, glowing spheres called logos. The logos must be mined and transported to our world, which is called the Land of Harvesters (LoH). It’s only in the LoH that the logos can be understood and used by educated individuals called harvesters.

Point of view: The point of view is that of a young boy named Joey, a farm boy from 1750. (The year was chosen so the ideas ‘discovered’ are yet to be known in his world.)

Characters: The LoL is populated with logologists (overseers of discovered logos), miners (giant creatures with glowing eyes that manage the logo mining sites), seers (members with the power to visualize the contents of a logo), diggers (dwarfs skilled at digging for buried logos), trolls, elves, and others.

Miners: Miners have a special skill to sense the buried logos but are susceptible to their hidden ideas, causing them to take on bizarre characteristics of the yet-to-be discovered ideas.

Children: Young children from our world are needed to assist in persuading the miners to release their finds. The miners view those from the LoH as royalty and treat them as honored guests revealing things to them that they’ll tell no others.

Pyramid of Knowledge: The longterm objective of those working in the LoL is to complete the Pyramid of Knowledge. Once the last idea, called the One, is harvested, the LoL and the LoH will merge, and all war, disease, and famine will end.

Individual book summaries

The Lost Lake Dig: In the first book, The Lost Lake Dig, the protagonist, Joey, is confronted by a strange man who transports him into the LoL where he joins an expedition with his long-lost best friend, a seer, and two digger dwarfs. A miner is acting strangely and is believed to have found an important logo.

The Twisted Tree Dig: In the second book, The Twisted Tree Dig, Joey returns to the LoL to rescue a young dwarf friend who has been captured by a crazed miner under the influence of a logo.

The One: In the final book of the trilogy, The One, Joey attends a dwarf wedding in the LoL and is stranded as the trolls revolt and threaten the future of the worlds by destroying the mining operations throughout the LoL.

Small sampling of the ideas and harvesters presented in the books

Computer technology: Professor John Atanasoff and Mr. Clifford Berry (Atanasoff-Berry Computer), Charles Babbage

Flight: Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier (balloonists), Wilber and Orville Wright

Medical: Edward Jenner (vaccination), Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin

Communications: Pony Express, Samual Morris (Morris Code), Alexander Graham Bell

Governance: Pericles (democracy)

Earth Science: Sir Isaac Newton (gravity), Benjamin Franklin (electrical fire)

Spy-craft: Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall, William Stephenson

Library science: Melvil Dewey (Dewey Decimal System)

Printing systems: Printing systems: woodblock printing, Gutenberg Press

Miscellaneous: kerosene lamp, aluminum, the match