When twelve-year-old Alexa Daley accompanies her father, the mayor of Lathbury, on his annual trip to Bridewell, she is intent on finding a way outside the wall. He then put the criminals, marked with a 'C' on their foreheads, to work building the vast walls surrounding the roads and cities, allowing the citizens to feel secure and protected from the threatening unknown wilderness - after each wall was complete, the criminals were returned, as promised, to Ainsworth.Ĭlick here to see the rest of this review Warvold decided new cities should be established to accomodate the growing population, but knowing the people still had a lingering fear of the surrounding forests and mountains, he struck a deal with the nearby city of Ainsworth - he was going to take three hundred convicts off the hands of their over-capacity prison with the exception that he could send them back after ten years, no questions asked, giving the city enough time to expand the building so it could hold more prisoners. When Thomas Warvold settled in an valley commonly thought to be haunted and dangerous, people started to believe that perhaps it really was a safe place to live, and so many immigrated to the area until it became too crowded. In the land of Elyon, there is a kingdom shaped like a wagon wheel, with the cities of Lathbury, Turlock, and Lunenburg at the end of each spoke, and long roads connecting them to the center city of Bridewell - of course, the only significant thing about this is each city and road is surrounded by great forty-two feet tall walls.

The hills divide