Entries Categorized as 'Review'
Posted by Sarah
Categories: All Ages, Fantasy, Fiction, Review
Tags:Animals, Cats, Funny, Good Read Aloud, Lewis Carroll, Lizards, Pigs, Rabbits, Turtles
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A young girl named Alice sees a mysterious white rabbit one day and follows it through a rabbit burrow into a magical and somewhat strange land. Cakes and drinks that change her size, a Hatter and a March Hare, a baby that is literally a pig, and conversations with walking packs of cards confront Alice as she makes her way through Wonderland.
The cards are quite fun. They play a game of croquet with Alice using flamingoes and hedgehogs as mallet and ball! I found the court scene amusing. This is a sort of book that doesn’t really explain things. It’s a string of strange adventures, but still enjoyable. By the way, a pun with the Mock Turtle struck me as funny. I found this book pretty good, and perhaps some day I will read the sequel, Through The Looking Glass.
Posted by Rebekah
Categories: All Ages, Fiction, Review
Tags:Animals, Horses, Keith Robertson
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Tim Cottrell enjoys riding his beautiful horse Whiskbroom cross-country, but he dreams of finding someone to ride with him. The feed man tells him about a supposed ghost horse and rider who have been sighted in the vicinity. But before Tim can try to track down the rider, his sister Leona introduces him to a girl named Kate, who loves horses, but says she won’t ride them. The two of them decide to start a riding stable and purchase a stubborn little donkey named Eloise. Once they discover how to keep Eloise from balking, they hire themselves out to give rides to children. During all this, Tim is still determined to catch the phantom rider. Then he discovers a beautiful Arabian mare named Gray Cloud. He’s sure that if Kate had a horse like that, she’d be willing to ride, so he attempts to buy the horse and discovers several secrets.
This is one of those books where the kids try to “gray over” things and rationalize their disobedience. I do appreciate the way the ghost horse and rider turn out. Eloise is rather cute, and Tim’s cross-country chasings of the phantom rider are fun. Any of you swash-buckling types who got your hopes up when I mentioned secrets, sit back in your chairs. They’re more ordinary and practical. For instance, why is Gray Cloud’s saddle dry when the caretaker claims he rides her daily? That sort of thing. That being said, it’s a fair book. I read it in one day.
Posted by Jordan
Categories: Advanced Readers, Fantasy, Fiction, Review, Science Fiction
Tags:future, Ray Bradbury, Scary
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Guy Montag is a fireman in the future. Now, firemen have a different type of job in this story. They burn things, rather than put out fires. What do they burn? Books. Why? Because if nobody reads, nobody will think, nobody will be offended by truth, and everybody will be happy. Right? No. Montag thinks his job is wrong, but what can he do about it?
A rather interesting book with a big warning attached to it. I enjoyed Fahrenheit 451 immensely, with few problems. My main complaint is that the last ten pages or so were a bit far fetched. Other than that, I highly recommend this one.
Posted by Jordan
Categories: Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction, Older Readers, Review
Tags:Animals, Birds, Cats, Dogs, Good Read Aloud, Long Read, Rabbits, Richard Adams
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Warned by a prophetic rabbit named Fiver, Hazel leads a group of rabbits out of his doomed warren to start a new life. However, even though they make it away safely, it will take all of their cunning and skill to keep the new warren on Watership Down thriving. In order not to die off, a group of rabbits are sent to bring back does (female rabbits) from the nearby warren of Efrafa. But the Efrafens are tough, military rabbits, and only a cunning trick will bring the does back safely.
Wonderful! The story of Hazel, Fiver, and their friends is one you won’t forget easily. Every page is interesting and vividly real. My only problem was that the rabbits would sometimes speak in a special rabbit language, which required flipping to the glossary to find the meanings of words. But this minor detail is easily taken care of by the end of the book, because Watership Down is so long, you’ll probably have most of the rabbit language memorized by the final chapters. Great to read out loud, and a must-read by my standards!
Posted by Ruth
Categories: Adventure, All Ages, Fantasy, Fiction, Review
Tags:Animals, Bears, Geraldine McCaughrean, Lions
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Wendy and the Lost Boys, all grown up, begin having dreams about Neverland more and more. In fact, every time they dream about it, something from Neverland appears when they wake up. They eventually come to the conclusion that something is very, very wrong in Neverland. They must become young again and fly back to find Peter before it’s too late.
I’m not a huge fan of Peter Pan, but I don’t particularly dislike it either. I thought this, the first authorized sequel, was pretty good. Often, something would come up that seemed out of place, or unecessary, but it all fit together in the end.
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