Does my new book, "Pictureland," sound like the world we're living in?

I have written 13 stories for my grandsons, Matthew and Mason. The first one to be published in book form was "Dancing with Bulls." I have now published a second story as a book. I call it "Pictureland."

The inspiration for "Pictureland" is a painting on the wall of my living room. It is a twilight scene in a city, with buildings, pedestrians, an incongruous horse pulling a cart, and a light rain falling. It looks like a pleasant place to be.

Looks are deceiving. It’s actually a place where tyrants practice mind control, and have implanted chips in the heads of the residents. When Matthew and Mason enter Pictureland on a whim, with help from Amy, a girl in the picture, they don’t know this, but Amy quickly clues them in.

There are multiple paintings represented in Pictureland, and the residents include not only the people in the pictures but also those living in the surrounding areas, as imagined by the artists. Most of them are “good” people. A few are not.

Matthew, Mason and Amy set about trying to get rid of the tyrants before the three are thrown into the Bloody Tower (which is in a picture of the Tower of London) and possibly, in the case of Matthew and Mason, executed by having their heads cut off, a la Anne Boleyn.

This is an adventure story, and the boys certainly have adventures, but there may also be a (gasp) moral. Can we recognize our own world in the book? At least, we don’t have chips in our heads—yet (although I know of some folks who think they do), but if the powers that be know where we’re going, everyone we’re talking to and all the websites we’re visiting, isn’t that almost the same thing?

I’m reminded of what Lord Acton said about power corrupting. Have we given too much power to too few people? Think about it.