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Remember, you read it here first. N. D. Wilson (no relation, I hasten to add) is a name that will soon be widely known. He will write many books, Lord willing, in many genres for our instruction and delight. His first is Leepike Ridge (Random House).

Still in his 20s, Wilson hails from Moscow, Idaho, where his father, Douglas Wilson (one of the leading lights of the classical Christian schooling movement), and a group of kindred spirits have built a Christian community of Reformed conviction centered on Christ Church in Moscow. Wilson the younger is a fellow of literature at New Saint Andrews College, where he also "teaches classical rhetoric to freshmen" (the book jacket informs us), a daunting task, and serves as managing editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine, published by the Christ Church community.

Earlier this year, a short story by Wilson appeared in Esquire magazine, and he'll have adult fiction in book form before too long. (No, not that kind of "adult.") Meanwhile, he has made his debut with what gets called "a novel for young readers"—in this case, as publishing conventions go, readers age 8 to 12.

Like many of the age-based generalizations that are common currency in our day, this publishing category combines the silly with the sensible. There is the pseudo-scientific precision of the age range and behind it a pedantic conception of reading that adventurous readers young and old consistently ignore. The young ones wantonly read above their "grade level" (while retaining an affection for the picture-heavy volumes in which they first sounded out words); the old ones move without fuss from Walker Percy and Calvin's Institutes to Narnia and the adventures of Frog and Toad.

So yes, Leepike Ridge was clearly written with young readers (perhaps even young Wilsons) in mind. Ever since the Harry Potter books began breaking records, publishers have been investing more time and money in fiction for kids. But like all books that satisfy a discerning 8-year-old or 10-year-old, this novel will also hold the attention of a reader in his 30s or 70s, especially if that reader has children or grandchildren nearby.

One of the salient qualities of satisfying fiction, of course, is that it bears re-reading (and re-reading and re-reading). Still, there's a particular never-to-be-repeated pleasure in following a story to its end for the first time, and I don't want to spoil the fun of the readers of this review, who will (I hope) pick up a copy of Leepike Ridge at the first opportunity. But without giving too much away, I can tell you that Wilson's tale features a winsome 11-year-old protagonist, Thomas Hammond, whose adventures unfold in a rural American setting that pretty closely resembles our familiar world, unencumbered by needless specificity and bathed in a certain strangeness. Not a tall tale exactly, and certainly not an epic (though there are playful allusions to the Odyssey), but something closer to a yarn, cross-bred with the boys' adventure stories that once sold like hotcakes and recounted by a narrator who is slyly funny as well as omniscient.

Boys. That brings us to an important subject, one that prudent souls avoid altogether. (Consider the career-crippling remarks of former Harvard president Larry Summers.) As a man who—for instance—doesn't drive a car and never has, I'm as ready as the next right-thinking citizen to decry facile generalizations. But that hasn't prevented me from noticing that men and women, boys and girls, are … different from one another.

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June 2007, Vol. 51, No. 6