The Prisoner of Alcatraz
If parents are looking for a story that will present a heroic role model for their boys to imitate, this is not the series for them.
A Post-Apocalyptic World of Dogs
This is the moral message of the book … don’t just think of yourself, don’t just let everyone do everything for you, combine self-reliance with care for others.
Die Hard, with Fairies (and Some Sketchy Elements)
In marketing terms, the books are brilliant, but like Artemis’s supposed wit, the brilliance is mostly superficial.
Flying Dinosaurs That Talk and Stuff
The books are neither very bad nor very good. On the whole, there are more positive than negative elements, but readers should be aware of these deficiencies.
The Trilogy That Gave Us the Expanded Universe
Although the writing is nothing extraordinary, “The Thrawn Trilogy” is wonderful in many respects, and opens Star Wars fans up to a whole world of new stories.
Snowblind
The book manages to be fairly reflective and literary, while still remaining a page-turning mystery.
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Although it does contain a few questionable elements, on the whole it’s only mediocre, and not deranged as the title would suggest.
“If it isn’t official, then it can’t be real, now can it?”
When I first saw Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Mysterious Benedict Society on a shelf in Barnes & Noble, my first thought was, “Great, another New York Times Best seller children’s series.” In general, great art—the possession for all time—seems to me to gain more approval as the generations pass, whereas the accolades for the piece that is designed for a favorable hearing start loud and dwindle with the attention spans that it has helped to erode. So I usually avoid bestsellers until they are a few decades old. It is summer, though, and the…
A Seafaring Man Learns the Ropes
Often perplexed, always resilient, Hornblower struggles through, learning his trade in a world of danger and duty. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, by C.S. Forester, chronicles the early career of one Horatio Hornblower as he cuts his teeth in the Royal Navy. A modern protagonist, Hornblower suffers from a number of imperfections, among them physical gawkiness, introvertedness, and a strong tendency toward self-criticism, that would likely undermine the progress of his career, were it not for certain mitigating, and ultimately triumphant qualities. These qualities—primarily a kind of…
A Book to Help Kids Make Friends Early with Mediocrity!
Finally someone has done it! In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney has given us a character who sees through all the fakes and morons in this sad, sad world. Through the pages of Greg Heffley’s journal, we get a taste of what things are really like for a poor, victimized middle schooler, and folks, it’s not a pretty picture! For example, Greg has to put up with morons. Constantly! As he puts it, with characteristic eloquence, “…I’ll be famous some day, but for now I’m stuck in middle school…