By Sumay McPhail
Hello everybody! Here I will be talking about lessons I’ve learned from a fiction book series called Keeper Of The Lost Cities. Most people try to push themselves to read nonfiction because of the educational benefit. However, if you take the time to think about the story, settings, and differences between our world and the fictional world, most likely there will be hidden lessons ready for you to dig for. Below I will write about 7 lessons I learnt and conclude how to find lessons in fictions books. I hope you enjoy, and find this helpful!
Lesson 1: Don’t forget your past, because your past holds a piece of who you are.
Lesson 2: Having a new perspective can help you see the flaws in day-to-day life.
Lesson 3: You have a mind of your own, try and use it to help people around you, and yourself.
Lesson 4: Everyone is fighting their own battle.
Lesson 5: Be proud of your strengths, don’t hide them.
Lesson 6: Stand up for the people you care about, even if it makes you uncomfortable sometimes.
Lesson 7: We don’t always need people guiding us through everything. Even if it’s easier.
Keeper of The Lost Cities
Sophie was raised by humans but is actually an elf. One day, an elf, Fitz Vacker comes to take her to the elven cities. This is a very big change for Sophie, and really hard too since her human family had all their memories of her erased. Sophie tries her best to catch up on everything and learn all she can about elven society, but she still has her effects from living with humans.
Lesson 1: Even if you are put in a new environment, and even if you have to be a new person to fit in, never forget your past. Because your past is still who you are, and that piece of you should never slip away.
The elven societies rulers are the Council. It is made up of twelve councillors and they make all of the decisions for the elven society. But even if they have the wrong perspective, everybody has to go along with what they say.
Sophie sees that this is not the greatest system because the Council doesn’t take into account anyone else’s perspectives except their own.
Lesson 2: Having a new perspective can help you see the flaws in day-to-day life that otherwise would go unnoticed. Since Sophie grew up with humans, she was able to see what improvements would be beneficial because of her fresh new perspective. It’s hard to picture the world for what it could be, so instead, we decide to be content with what it is. Realizing that everything has its flaws and can be improved on can help us improve on not only the world around us, but also ourselves!
Sophie also finds out that she was created by a secret organization called the Black Swan that is planting information in her brain, and sending her notes to do certain things. She doesn’t know what their motive is, and doesn’t know who they are and feels like she’s their puppet for doing everything they want her to do.
Lesson 3: Even if you feel like someone is trying to force you to do things, and you aren’t in control anymore, know that you are a human being, with power and a mind of your own. You can take control, and you can make your own decisions for yourself. Even when things are hard, you can always step up and clean up whatever mess was made. You just have to have the courage to do it.
Also, not many people are too happy with Sophie coming to the elven cities because they don’t know her and think that it is mysterious how she just randomly showed up. Sophie also has brown eyes while all other elves have blue eyes making some people doubt she is even an elf! Sophie also has really strong powers, she can lift really heavy things with her mind, her mind is impenetrable to anyone she doesn’t trust, and she can track people’s thoughts to their exact location. And adding to the list of downsides, Bronte, a member of the Council, dislikes Sophie a lot. But Sophie is making new friends and getting used to the entirely different life she was supposed to call normal.
Lesson 4: Even when everything seems to be going against us, know that everybody is pushing against the currents. Sometimes your currents are tame, and other times they may be relentlessly crashing against you. But either way, it is always important to know that you aren't the only one going through hard times and trying to jump through the hoops of life. You’re struggling, and they’re struggling too. But in the end, we’ll all get stronger.
How the elven society found Sophie was that there were fires burnt around Sophie's town in the symbol of a black swan. This was very suspicious so they checked it out and found Sophie. In the elven society, elves usually have something called a special ability. What this special ability is varies greatly from elf to elf. Sophie has multiple including the ability to read minds. Having multiple abilities is rare, however, and increases people’s wariness of her arrival.
Lesson 5: Being talented, and capable is very different from being a threat. However, not all people see that. You can be different, but you can stand strong. Don’t hide your strengths, use them to improve the world around you!
There is a certain special ability called pyrokinetics, and they can create fires, and a certain kind of fire called Everblaze. Sophie thinks that the Black Swan symbol burnt around her city is Everblaze. This is a problem because Everblaze can only be put out by a special powder only elves can make. But the Council won’t act until they are certain it is Everblaze, but they aren’t making efforts in finding out if it is Everblaze. So Sophie goes to the city (which she is breaking a law by doing) and uses a fire-proof bird named Verdie to help her bottle the fire and present it to the Council. This is because she cares about the humans, because of her past. She gets in big trouble afterwards, but then the Council is forced to act, and the humans can be safe.
Lesson 6: Authorities have blind spots, just like we all do. And sometimes we have to act to protect the things we hold dear. If Sophie hadn’t bottled the Everblaze to show the Council, who knows how long they would’ve let the fire burn? And Even though Sophie had to suffer the consequences, she still protected what mattered to her. We all have to do things we may not feel comfortable doing to stand up for the people we care about, or something we care about. It doesn’t have to include breaking any laws, but you may have to step outside of your comfort zone in order to do so. But remember who you are standing up for, and why they are so important to you.
Suddenly, after getting mad and fleeing to some caves to calm herself she gets kidnapped by the Neverseen, a group of rebels wanting to get back at the Council for some unfair things that happened to them. Dex, her friend, came to check on her and was also kidnapped as well. They got burnt, and were tied up because the Neverseen was trying to get information on the Black Swan from them because they wanted to defeat the Black Swan.
After going through days of being sedated, burnt, and tied up, Dex and Sophie were rescued by a member of the Black Swan. The member didn’t help them all the way, though, and they had to find their way on their own. They eventually found their way back, learning a little more about the Neverseen on the way too.
Lesson 7: Sometimes it may feel like we need someone to help us through to the very end, but it may end up to be the very thing you need to do alone. To grow, to learn, to get stronger. There will be many people standing by your side, but they don’t always have to guide you through life. You can go through life on your own, leading yourself, pushing yourself, but knowing there will be someone there to catch you when you fall.
This isn’t the entire book's summary, and there are many parts we have left out. But I hope you found this helpful and take the chance to read this amazing series!
How to Find Lessons in Fiction
Every hardship and struggle you face can be turned into a learning opportunity. Fiction books are chalked full of hardships, and when you take the time to put yourself in the characters' situation, you will probably find there are many lessons hidden beneath the context of a stimulating story.
For example:
The elven societies rulers are the Council. It is made up of twelve councillors and they make all decisions for the elven society. But even if they have the wrong perspective, everybody has to go along with what they say.
Sophie sees that this is not the greatest system because the Council doesn’t take into account anyone else’s perspectives except their own.
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What made Sophie different from others to make it so that she was the one who saw all these flaws of the elven society? Because she wasn’t used to it, and hadn't grown up in the environment, so it was a lot easier for her to see the flaws in the system. Also, it explained why everyone else seemed fine with how things were situated. It is hard for people to see the world for what it could be. This is also true for our world as well. If aliens came from outer-space, perhaps they would have one or two suggestions about how we govern things that we wouldn’t have thought of. From that information, I came up with the lesson below.
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Lesson 2: Having a new perspective can help you see the flaws in day-to-day life that otherwise would go unnoticed. Since Sophie grew up with humans, she was able to see what improvements would be beneficial because of her fresh new perspective. It’s hard to picture the world for what it could be, so instead, we decide to be content with what it is. Realizing that everything has its flaws and can be improved on can help us improve on not only the world around us, but also ourselves!
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Thank you everybody for reading my post about finding lessons on fiction. I hope you start realizing some lessons in your own fiction books and find them helpful! And especially, thank you for all of your support and help in growing our blog, our podcast, and hopefully, our app!