Prince Ombra is a book about a boy named Bentley Ellicott. Bentley, however, was no ordinary boy. He was to become part of a long list of heroes, including Hercules and King Arthur. And what all of these heroes had in common was that they shared the same heart that not only pumped blood but also words of what the hero should do. Bentley grew up in a town called Stonehaven. It is just an ordinary town until Bentley is born, and then things began to change. These changes were brought on upon Prince Ombra, the source of all evil who Bentley would one day fight to the death.

At first, Bentley doesn’t care too much about what he has to do in the future. He is just a baseball loving, regular boy. He knows from the beginning that he was to be a hero, someday. This is what his cavern angel told him when he was born.

Bentley as a few strange powers that he is able to use. He has hawks that fly above him to protect him from Ombra, and a chant that he learned from horseshoe crabs. Neither of these powers seemed to be of any use when he was going on with his regular life.

As Bentley began to prepare for what would one day come when he had to fight Prince Ombra, Ombra entered the physical world from his hide out somewhere in space. Ombra began to tempt Bentley. An example of this tempting is when Bentley’s best friend Joe turned evil and tried to hit Bentley with a baseball bat. Another example is when the town minister and a friend of Bentley’s becomes a drunk and is run out of the town. All of these evils are those of Prince Ombra.

I feel that at this point in the book, Bentley is too innocent to understand why the evil Ombra would want to hurt him, since he didn’t feel that he did anything wrong. Even so, Prince Ombra was constantly trying to hurt Bentley because he knew that one day he would have to fight the boy, and he was afraid of losing.

Bentley befriends a German psychiatrist who finds the boy very interesting, considering Bentley can speak the doctor’s language and could understand a little girl who couldn’t speak English. The doctor was supposed to be Bentley’s teacher as he prepared to fight Prince Ombra. This was instructed by the caver angel. This was a large step in the development of the story since Bentley needed to find a teacher before he fought the evil, and the teacher was able to help Bentley in time of need.

The little girl who couldn’t talk correctly became friends with Bentley, which is what Bentley needed because he had nobody else to play with. These steps are all building up to the one day when he fights Prince Ombra. With each person that enters in to his life, Bentley is preparing for the evil that Prince Ombra tries to press him with.