Legend of the Lamp Volumes 1 & 2

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Tina Monson finished up her The Liahona Legacies trilogy and began on this one on The Legacy of the Lamp with two volumes completed.

These books introduce us to LDS Church history in a way never imagined before as four youth go reluctantly with parents on a summer history trip back to where the Gospel was restored back to the earth and their grandfather, who has tried to discover the secrets behind a oil lamp  does a masterful job getting them excited about searching for clues to discover the secrets behind the Legend of the Lamp loosely based on the journal writing of Heber C. Kimball who wrote about a hidden cave full of precious writing on sacred records, the sword of Laban, the Liahona, and other items that are written about in the Book of Mormon.

After a romp through a few of the historical sites and discovering items where others never thought to look based on clue-upon-clue, and being chased by some malevolent treasure seekers, Hunter, Hanna, Hayden and Allison read a letter from Joseph Smith Jr. to them written 200 or so years earlier, saying they need to go discover where the Lost Tribes of Israel are located and bring 2 from each tribe back, so those tribes won’t be lost anymore and the prophesies regarding the latter-days can be fulfilled.

Volume 2 has them having a few near-death experiences as they walk and run by faith to the underground location where the tribes are suffering under the rule of a prophet-king.  He happens to have been running as dictator over the survivors of the 10 tribes and attempting to keep prophecies regarding 4 who would come discover them to bring them back. The youth happen upon a young gal (Kira) whose father is in prison for contesting the king’s right to rule and they attempt to get him released.

Volume 3 will hopefully wrap things up, as they figure out how to get back to the surface with representatives of each tribe without loosing their lives in the process.

Volume 1 is on CD.

The story line is great, the clues discovered on cloth and stone are believable. They translate from the Deseret Language that Brigham Young had attempted to get everyone in the State of Deseret (pre-Utah) to learn, since they were all from various countries and spoke different languages with Mormonism being the only uniter. (the Desert Language essentially was an early Esperanto from 1877 and died with him.)

 I could see this being made into a movie that would be almost as interesting as…