The Lair of Bones (The Runelords, Book 4) Review

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(More customer reviews)It ends so quickly with so many things unanswered or forgotten that it HAS to be a set up for another book or series. It isn't that I necessarily wanted a "happy" ending. I just wanted some resoultion, good or bad. Here are a few things that I can remember (possible spoilers):
Remember the book that was such a big deal in chapter one of book one? Everyone had to get a hold of it because it had secrets about the Days? Well, forget it because it's barely hinted at.
Daylan Hammer, Borenson's quest, etc.? Dropped. There's mention, and it's key for some of the characters, but after that, nothing.
Waggit who?
Erin has a large part in this book. Ultimately, though, nothing comes of her story and that plot is dropped.
Another key character is introduced in Inkarra, but he's there only to move the story forward, apparently. Repurcussions to his actions were not told.
Borenson discoveres a new rune, and must get to a facilitator to show it to them, but that is forgotten.
There's more, but what's the point. I was going to give this four stars, but with the abrupt ending, I'm giving it 3. It's still a solid read all the way through, I was just hoping for more resolution.

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The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son Review

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(More customer reviews)If you had a child who needed your help with a critical problem like autism, where would you turn after you had been to all the doctors, all the clinics, and all the psychologists? Would you pace around your own dusty Texas backyard, and then turn to your neighbor's Quarter horse mare, to see if she might be able to help? Horses helped you when you were a child, didn't they? And if she did help him...then what? Would you stop there?
Or would you go to the ends of the equine earth to try to help your child? If a little bit of horse is good, would a lot of horse be better? Would you set aside all the cultural and belief systems you hold and look for help in a place so strange and foreign that only the smell of the horses was familiar?
If you did those things, it would sound and look like the story and photos in this important new book, the true story of a family on the run toward hope, because they already know it is futile to stand still. "It's important to do something," the experts tell them. But no one expected a young family to "do" an adventure like this.
THE HORSE BOY weaves together autism, adventure and equine threads into one lovely braided mane of a tale that is not a how-to, not a guide and certainly not a declaration of a cure found for autism. It is simply the narrative of going after hope and finding bits along the way, like you'd find tufts of fur on a fence where a horse has rubbed his shedding coat at winter's end: Signs of better, lighter times to come.
Read this book to catch the contagion of hope, to feel the rhythm of horses moving under you across the Asian Steppes; to taste the highs and lows of living with autism, both for the child and for the parent; to marvel at the wisdom and yet sometimes callous nature of the revered shamanistic wise men of the nomadic tribes of Mongolia; and to most of all remember that we don't all live in the same world, but that any world usually looks better from the back of a horse.

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Seekers #2: Great Bear Lake Review

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(More customer reviews)YOu Will LOVE THIS!!
Great Buy!!
I love how More Emotions are BuiLt in this book...
A Great SEQUEL to Seekers: The Quest Begins
I can't wait for the next SEEKERS book!!
Great Buy, Great Read!! GET IT!!


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Destiny has brought them together. . . .

Young black bear Lusa has left the comfort of the zoo, determined against all odds to make her way in the wild. It is there that she encounters grizzly cub Toklo and a mysterious changeling named Ujurak. Once united, the cubs find themselves on a journey toward a mystical place—if only they knew where.

Meanwhile, separated from her family, polar bear cub Kallik trusts her intuition to lead her on a path traveled by many bears before her. At last the four cubs meet at the sacred Great Bear Lake, a place of peace and healing where bears gather to cele­brate the longest day.

But all is not harmonious. Danger lurks beneath the calm surface of the lake, and only if they put aside their differences and truly come together will the young bears have any chance of surviving the harsh realities of the wild.

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The Art of Travel Review

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(More customer reviews)In the past, when I still regularly attended graduation parties, such parties were always teeming with graduates-to-be harbouring fanciful travel plans. Everybody seemed intent on getting away a.s.a.p., as long as possible, and to a very far away and preferably out of the way place. They wanted to become travellers, a breed not to be confused with commonplace tourists. I've never been able to detect any intrinsic motivations driving this graduate travelling habit, e.g. a deep-seated and longstanding interest in a particular country or culture. It was simply a matter of opportunity, this jumping at the a chance to be thoroughly irresponsible for a while, before entering on the responsibilities of a steady job. And of course, everybody was going and it would be very un-cool to stay at home. After these people returned from their well-organised adventures, it invariably struck me how little they had changed, and how little they had to tell about the places they had been; apart maybe from random scraps on local customs that I could as easily and more completely have found in any travel guide book. Nevertheless most of these people, even years later, would be prone to lapse into dreamy states of blissful reminiscence at the slightest cue, expressing a deep longing to go back there, preferably to stay. It got me wondering why it is that the same things we find boring or commonplace at home are suddenly deeply interesting simply because they occur 5,000 miles away.
I remember one such party where I met an acquaintance who just got her degree in philosophy. I asked her if she was planning on her more or less mandatory world trip as well. But she just gave me a weary smile, tapped the side of her head and said: `Travelling is something you do in here'.
In a nutshell that's the question and the essence of the answer in Alain de Botton's thoughtful book on travel. Why do we bother? What do we expect, and why are we so often disappointed? And then again, why do our memories of the trip rarely reflect the disappointments? And what is the clue to not being disappointed? How do you go about really experiencing the place where you are and making it part of yourself? On all such questions De Botton has interesting and often entertaining observations to make. He shows us that the exotic is not defined by long-haul flights and palm trees, but can be found literally on your doorstep if you just know how to look. He explains why a travelling Englishman can be depressed on far away and exotic Barbados and euphoric in nearby, but in many ways equally exotic Amsterdam, or even around the corner in Hammersmith where he lives. As a Dutchman I was fascinated by his detailed analysis of a sign in the arrivals hall of Amsterdam Airport, explaining its exotic nature from a British viewpoint, and the reasons you would never ever find a sign like that in the UK, just across the Channel. De Botton is a master at finding such surprising angles to elucidate his subjects. Moreover he has considerable erudition to add, resulting in an engrossing mixture of philosophical insight, personal experience, and references to artists, writers, explorers and scientists of the past. Mostly these historical figures, Flaubert in Egypt, say, or Humboldt in South America or Van Gogh in the Provence, are exemplary `artists of travel', people who knew how to make the most of their expeditions. By taking their mindset, involving energy, patience and an eye for detail, as a template, De Botton generates some useful suggestions for the modern day traveller who no longer wants to bore himself by `scoring' obligatory highlights in the guidebook star-rating order, or who refuses to be a slave to his camera any longer. He may even give you some clues as to how to deal with that greatest travelling problem of them all, the fact that wherever you go, you always have to take yourself along.
In all, an elegant, intelligent, thought-provoking, amusing and useful little book, that nobody who takes travelling seriously should miss. Don't take it with you though - it won't last you much longer than an afternoon on the beach...

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Save the Whales Please Review

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(More customer reviews)A whale drive from the Arctic to the Antarctic is a pretty cool concept. The book reads like "24," with a lot of parallel action. The chapters are short. You can stop and start without having to go back. But once you start reading, I think it's pretty un-put-downable. My recommendation: Surely buy and read.

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A young, beautiful eco-terrorist, the American president's wife is determined to stop the overhunting of whales by the Japanese, the Norwegians, and others, so she embarks on a daring plan to drive a stranded herd of blue whales from the Arctic to the opposite end of the earth—the Antarctic. Her husband, the President, has promised to let the Japanese take the blue whales in exchange for their support in a looming economic crisis. On board a hijacked whaling factory ship, the First Lady defies her husband and—with the help of the ship's captain, a recently reformed whaling pirate—confronts the Japanese fleet and threatens to sink it. This big, bold rescue adventure blends romance with a generous dose of dirty politics.

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Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Treasure, Archeology, and Greed off the Coast of Vietnam Review

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(More customer reviews)Vietnam has spent almost all its past under control of China, or under threat of such control. There was a brief "golden age" of eighty years in the fifteenth century when it ruled itself, and its art, including making and glazing ceramics, broke free from the traditions of its big northern neighbor. The years of independence descended into chaos when a civil war began, and the art of the period was largely lost, even the ceramics that were dispersed in trade and then were lost. The artistic production of the age of independence was gone, not enough of it remaining to be systematically collected or understood. One trove of ceramics, however, had lain undisturbed on board the wreck of the _Hoi An_ which had gone down off the coast of Vietnam five hundred years ago. The rediscovery of the hoard, and how it was released to the markets of the world, is the story in _Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Treasure, Archeology, and Greed Off the Coast of Vietnam_ (Harcourt) by Frank Pope. Pope was an immediate observer of much of what is described here; he was the archeological manager for the expedition, the most expensive underwater archeological excavation ever, involving scores of divers, archeologists, seamen, draftsmen, and support personnel like cooks. There is the suspense of working within dangerous depths here, but most of the book's well-narrated drama comes from the conflicting dual motives of the expedition.
The two main characters of the book neatly illustrate the dual motives. Ong Soo Hin is a Malaysian businessman. He might be described as a "smash and grab" salvager, with success in bringing up artistic treasures. He was no archeologist, but realized that there was some worth in keeping an academic arm to his researches; archeologists documenting his finds could well increase the value of them because of giving them credible context and history. He teamed up with Mensun Bound, an academic who was the director of the Maritime Archeology unit at Oxford University (the author is one of his protégés). This was a risk for Bound, since it was unseemly for a professor to break ranks with academia and join in a commercial venture. The difficulties in Bound's position are clear. He would provide an only chance that the contents of the wreck could yield historical information rather than just profit, and if he did not do so, then the wreck would be sacrificed to mere profiteers. The _Hoi An_ was already a target for unsystematic dredging by fishermen who were not only pulling up finds but damaging many by the way they were doing so. There was no way such a difficult excavation could be funded just by, say, Oxford University, and Bound felt he was making the best of what could have been an archeological disaster otherwise. Throughout the excavation, partners Bound and Ong repeatedly bothered one another in ways both rational and puerile, and the duel is fascinating to watch. It takes place in the middle of the most advanced technology for such salvage, and Pope's description of technical aspects of diving, and of the dangers connected to it, is excellent.
It isn't surprising that with competing motivations that interfered with each other, the dive should not be a success. The problem was not that there was limited treasure; over a quarter of a million items were successfully brought up. Indeed, part of the problem may have been that because Vietnamese ceramics from this period are rare, there are few knowledgeable collectors of it and the _Hoi An_ finds represented a huge glut in a small market. That the losses were in the millions meant that the proposed academic reports were delayed, perhaps forever, and also there was an ugly academic squabble about the dating of the finds. All that money and effort went for little real gain, and so to read Pope's book is to be reminded of the frequent futility of human planning and endeavor. Pope ends with the reminder that there are countless other valuable wrecks out there and with the hope that somehow we will find a way to appreciate both their financial and their historic value, but this fascinating and pessimistic book itself gives little hope.


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The Bark Of The Bog Owl (The Wilderking Trilogy) Review

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(More customer reviews)There is a distinct lack of good fiction geared toward young people, specifically ages 10-14. Harry Potter isn't an option for some families. Artemis Fowl isn't nearly as well-known (which is unfortunate).
Now there's another option. Jonathan Rogers has written The Wilderking Trilogy, and offers us a series for young readers that is fun, exciting, and based on Christian ideals and principles.
Book 1, The Bark of the Bog Owl, was actually released back in 2004. The premise is familiar to Christians -- a young boy, Aiden Errolson, tending his father's sheep, is chosen by a mysterious prophet to be the next King -- the Wilderking, who comes to lead his people back to prominence in the world, and to reclaim the traditional ideals that the people have forgotten.
The only real weakness in this first book is that the main plot is far too predictable. Once I read that Aiden was a shepherd, I had a feeling that this would be the story of King David retold. Then the Phillist -- I mean, the Pyrthens -- show up with their "peace treaty," which leads to war. Then Aiden goes to his brothers at the front carrying cheese and other food. And guess what? There's this giant ...
That said, I really enjoyed this book. The subplots involving the aboriginal "feechies" is very enjoyable, especially the Feechiefeast that Aiden enjoys. The characters are familiar, but still deep. It's going to be interesting to see Aiden mature over the course of the next two books, and it's a relief to read about a boy who is actually boyish -- he likes to roam, play, and have adventures. He's a twelve-year-old who writes to the King volunteering his services as "an adventurer." And suddenly, he's got a huge responsibility dropped on him. He reacts the way any normal kid would react.
Rogers has a Ph.D in 17th Century English Lit, but this book reads as if he'd spent his academic career studying 18th Century American literature instead. The differences in dialect between feechie and 'civilizer' are distinct, American dialects, and the setting certainly reminds me of the American southeast -- fitting, since Rogers grew up in Georgia. The series has promise, and after I finished this book I was relieved that I'd gotten the second one to review as well. THAT review will be up in a half hour or so ...

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The Last Apprentice: Clash of the Demons Review

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(More customer reviews)Well let's see, I am a 40 year old male that sometimes get embarrassed when I read the grade level for these Joseph Delaney books, but let me tell you; they are very entertaining. I love how all the forces come together for this installment. Great story telling. The problem is you read the books so fast and you end up wanting more. So I picked up the the Witches Revenge and started reading it again. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a great good vs. evil book.

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Mississippi Jack: Being an Account of the Further Waterborne Adventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman, Fine Lady, and Lily of the West (Bloody Jack Adventures) Review

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(More customer reviews)In this, the 5th novel in the picaresque/historical fiction series about the adventures/misadventures of the irrepressible Jacky Faber, we see our heroine again narrowly escaping transport back to England to be hanged for piracy. Jacky then begins another rousing adventure tale as she travels west to the Allegheny-Ohio-Mississippi Rivers on her way to New Orleans, meeting characters along the way that sound like they could have come from the pens of Mark twain, James Fenimore Cooper, and George MacDonald Fraser. She meets and shelters a runaway slave named Solomon (just like Twain's Huck Finn and Jim), a free-spirited backwoodsman and a Shawnee, Lightfoot Bumpus & Chee-a-quat, (Cooper's Natty "Leatherstocking" Bumppo & the Mohican Chingachgook), Royal Navy Lieutenant Flashby and Captain Richard Lord Allen (sharing the good and bad traits of Fraser's anti-heroic rogue Harry Flashman). The author, Louis A. Meyer, throws in the "Larger Than Life" Mike Fink of American Folklore and many other interesting (albeit flawed) folks. Jacky seems to have a knack for getting into trouble and thoroughly loves the attention she receives (except for the rough handling, imprisonment, and tar and feathering parts, that is). All in all, this is one heck of an exciting riverboat ride and the most rollicking Jacky Faber escapade yet. I highly recommend this and the other books in the series.

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Ilium Review

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(More customer reviews)I reached the point long ago where I became rather fiercely committed to the idea of reading a novel without knowing too much about the story. Book covers are immediately discarded upon purchase (sometimes not to be found for months later when they surface again all crumpled and wrinkled), and I passionately avoid reading the back covers of paperbacks until after the book is read, at which point I am usually grossly offended. Consequently, I picked up Dan Simmons' "Ilium" simply because I heard it was a retelling of the Trojan War in general and Homer's "Iliad" in particular. Since I teach that epic poem in my Classical Mythology class and have always considered myself to be an "Iliad" person rather than an "Odyssey" person, that was enough to get me to pack this book away for a recent trip when I could commit myself to some serious continuous reading. So I was rather surprised to learn that a retelling of the "Iliad," after a fashion, is but one of three story threads that start to come together over the course of this 576 page novel, which is itself but the first half of the saga envisioned by Simmons.
The Trojan War is being reenacted on an Earth created by a race of metahumans who have assumed the roles of the Greek gods of classical mythology, who apparently live on Mars. Our vantage point to this exercise is Thomas Hockenberry, a scholar who is pretty sure he is dead and remembers little of his life on earth, but knows Homer's epic poem chapter and verse, and along with the rest of his colleagues is cataloguing where the action diverges from the "Iliad." It seems that Homer played around with the chronology when he wrote his epic thousands of years ago, which begs the question of why Hockenberry is now watching it played out and getting involved in a way that goes well beyond academic interest, beginning with a night in the bed of Helen of Troy herself. Meanwhile, a couple of robots with a propensity for quoting Shakespeare and Proust are leaving Jupiter to head to Mars to check out the strange readings they are picking up and back on Earth a group of humans living in a post-technological world where mechanical servants take care of their every needs are starting to rethink the way things are. When the latter meets up with Odysseus, we have another substantial clue that (surprise, surprise) these three plot threads are all parts of the same puzzle.
I have to admit that my interest for the non-"Iliad" parts of "Ilium" took a while to be kindled, mainly because my fascination with how the Trojan War was playing out was so great. Hockenberry has been studying the Trojan War for nine years and as the novel begins he and his colleagues are excited because they have finally reached the start of the "Iliad," when Agamemnon, King of the Acheans, arrogantly insults the great warrior Achilles over Briseis of the lovely arms. However, this becomes almost a minor consideration for Hockenberry the Muse he serves brings him to the goddess Aphrodite, who wants the scholar to kill the Athene herself.
From the opening paragraph, where Simmons does a pointed take off on the famous beginning of Homer's epic, Simmons dances his story in and around the "Iliad." The question of how a mere mortal such as Diomedes could dare to attack the gods themselves on the battlefield, and actually wound then, is not answered: he is injected with nano-technology by another deity. However, it is when we get to the fateful point where Homer's story is effectively derailed and Hockenberry makes the inevitable declaration to Dorothy's little dog that we are no longer in the "Iliad" and are now charting new ground.
Ultimately Simmons is more like Euripides than Homer. It was the Greek dramatist who set up the ironic foreshadowing of the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles in "Iphigenia at Aulis" and who created an emotional counterpart in "The Trojan Women" to the end of the "Iliad," where Hector's corpse is brought back to the city. Homer's epics were not holy writ for the ancient Greeks, and the tragic poets could use his characters to tell their own stories, which is exactly what Simmons is doing (there is one part that struck me as a deadly serious twist on Aristophanes' "Lysistrata"). I have the feeling that the conclusion will be more like the "Odyssey," especially since the "original" fate of Troy, Achilles, Hector, and the others are well over the rainbow, but now I am curious to see not only what happens next, and who wins the new war that has begun, but also because I want to find out who is behind the curtain.

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The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. Review

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(More customer reviews)Reviewing this book and deciding how many stars to give it was difficult. I was torn between reviewing the actual book and the threesome's journey. The idea of abandoning successful lives and embarking on a year long expedition around the globe is without a doubt 5-star worthy. I'm jealous that they had the guts to take the leap, to be honest. The actual book itself, though, fell a little flat.
What Kept Me Reading
- The book changes locales often, providing the reader with the ability to see places all over the world that are off the beaten track. If I was thinking about doing this sort of trip these probably wouldn't necessarily be the places I'd think of visiting, but it was a nice tour.
- I appreciated how the narration was done- it divided the book up well (this is actually a downfall too... see below).
- The girls are honest about burn-out and conflicting emotions about the people, places, and jobs they left back home.
Not Quite Good Enough
- The writing style really annoyed me, especially when they laid it on thick. I know it's a travel log and they want to be descriptive, but the authors frequently over did it (along the lines of, "I sipped my steaming, bitter, hot coffee from the shiny white plastic top that had been tightly placed on top of the thick cardboard cup by the boyish barista who was wearing a bright green apron with dark stains on the front." This isn't actually in the book, but you can see there is some major adjective overkill).
- The three girls each tell their different stories, but, honestly, they really don't have their own narrative personalities. Yeah, they have different back-stories and a few personality quirks, but I'd often have to look at the bottom of the page to remember whose section I was reading.
- There's nothing in the book that is truly, truly exciting. They have adventurous spirits, obviously, but I everything was just portrayed in a very-low key way that was a bit disappointing. I didn't always feel the enthusiasm that I am sure was there.
- There are no pictures! A few black and white ones of their favorite places would have been nice, at least.
Again, I really admire these three women. They are brave, strong, resourceful, and extremely adept to new situations. I think one issue too is that they are used to writing blogs and articles- a 500+ page book is an entirely different beast.

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Physik (Septimus Heap, Book 3) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've waited so long for Book 3 that you would think I was in the 9 to 12 age group - but I am not. I am a grandma. I've read all three books because I like to keep up with my grandchildren's reading - AND because Angie Sage is an excellent author. These are fairy tale books in the true sense of enjoyment. It is not a Harry Potter - which I thoroughly enjoyed - but it is a curl up on a windy, rainy day and get lost in another realm book. They are excellent for your children and fun for yourselves. I'd advise this as a wonderful birthday gift or a "surprize!!!" on a vacation gift. You should buy, read and enjoy.

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The Last of the Sky Pirates (The Edge Chronicles, Book 5) Review

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(More customer reviews)When I finished book 4, "The Curse of the Gloamglozer", I realized that the stage had been set for an incredible book 5. Thankfully, the books in this series come out much more quickly than the ones from J. K. Rowling , so I didn't have long to wait for "The Last of the Sky Pirates", the best in the series so far.
Set fifty years after "Midnight Over Sanctaphrax" (book 3), it doesn't continue from book 4, the first chronologically in the series, which sounds awfully confusing, but actually isn't. The Edge is a totally different place, with the mighty sky ships unable to fly, and New Sanctaphrax barely teetering on wooden supports after the dreaded stone sickness destroys the buoyant floating rocks. The Librarian Academics have been driven underground into the sewers, where they have constructed a vast library of scientific studies, and are forced to send worthy young scholars on covert and perilous missions for training, before they complete their life's quest by studying and documenting their chosen field of nature study.
In this book we follow the trail of young Rook Barkwater, a clever young under-librarian who is destined to become a Librarian Knight, doing research on the secret gatherings of banderbears, to whom he feels an unexplainable connection. His mission is dangerous and exciting, filled with wonderfully named, described and illustrated creatures that would otherwise defy the imagination.
During his thrilling adventures, he meets Captain Twig, who was thought to have perished with his crew in book 3, and begins a whole new adventure to rescue Twig's friend Cowlquape from the prisons of the Most High Guardian of Night, the villainous scoundrel of this episode.
Just as dark as the other books, but with a lot more action and adventure, I recommend this one heartily to fans of the series, but would advise newcomers to read at least books 1 to 3 first.Amanda Richards, August 8, 2005


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Crossing To Paradise Review

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(More customer reviews)Many readers of Kevin Crossley-Holland's earlier novels may remember spunky field girl Gatty from his Arthur Trilogy, which blended together the legend of King Arthur with the quest of a young Crusader also named Arthur. In CROSSING TO PARADISE, Gatty gets her own story --- and reaches places her beloved Arthur never could.
No one at Caldicot is quite sure what to do with 15-year-old Gatty. Alone in the world except for her cow, Hopeless, Gatty has been out of sorts ever since her beloved friend Arthur left for the Crusades. Sir Walter, Arthur's father, then learns that a Welsh widow, Lady Gwyneth de Ewloe, is looking for a chamber servant to accompany her and a small group of pilgrims to Jerusalem.
At first, neither Gatty nor Lady Gwyneth is sure about this arrangement. As for the other pilgrims, most of them are certain that Lady Gwyneth has made a costly mistake by asking Gatty to accompany them from England through Europe and on to Jerusalem. Gatty is unpolished and ill-mannered, filthy and dressed at first in clothes of sackcloth. But even after a bath and a new dress, Gatty continues to be impulsive, reckless and entirely too bold to be a suitable young woman.
But Gatty, who has the voice of an angel, gradually wins most members of the party over with her sweet songs and kind spirit. And, when tragedy hits, it is Gatty who leads the group to the fulfillment of its pilgrimage. By the time she returns home, she is not the same rough, shy field girl who left Caldicot. Her prospects for the future are bright, and she is no longer alone.
Crossley-Holland has developed into one of the richest chroniclers of the Middle Ages. In his Arthur Trilogy, he explored the experience of a young man's coming of age during the Crusades. In CROSSING TO PARADISE, he examines the possibilities available to medieval women --- both high-born and lowly --- and the long road of medieval pilgrimage.
CROSSING TO PARADISE is clearly inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's THE CANTERBURY TALES, and his cast of characters --- which includes a noblewoman, a cook, a stableman, a merchant and a choirmaster --- provides numerous insights into medieval lifestyles. His account of pilgrimage is lively and realistic, with memorable forays into London, Venice and Jerusalem, with all their sights, sounds, smells and intrigues. Most memorable, however, is Gatty herself, whose combination of innocence, desire for justice and ability to turn experience into song make for a compelling, complicated heroine.
At one point during their journey, Lady Gwyneth tells Gatty that each of the people they meet on their way has his or her own story and that "all the stories we step into become part of our own story. Our pilgrimage." Readers will relish the opportunity to accompany Gatty on her own pilgrimage, to make her rich story part of their own.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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The Story of Doctor Dolittle (Books of Wonder) Review

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(More customer reviews)I liked the story of Dr. Dolittle. However I would like to warn modern readers, that the full version of this book is Racist. So the Editors have carefully changed the story of the African Chief who wished to become Cacausion in appearance to one where he wishes to become a lion. Now, I agree that the story is better this way, but mucking around with books after the author is dead and can't defend or fix them is right out. So in that vein I can't recommend this edition of this book. The editors should have changed the title to "The Modern Dr. Dolittle" or some other name which implies that the story isn't the orginal. They do it all the time with the bible, "King James Ed.", "Good News for Modern Man" etc.
If you are going to read to children, books which treat people unfairly you should take the time explain why this was a poor idea even in its day. Or not read them at all. Or own up to the fact that you've changed the story.
On the plus side the illustrations are great, M. Hague is a great artist.

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Peter and the Sword of Mercy (Starcatchers) Review

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(More customer reviews)I loved, loved, loved this book! I was so excited that the authors had gone ahead and written a part 4, and it was in no way a disappointment. The adventure was uniquely different from the other books in the series, and there was lots of action and many sinister characters. Thanks for another wonderful book!

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The House of Sixty Fathers Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book as a child and, in turn, read it to my children. It has a permanent place in our hearts. It is the well written story of a young Chinese boy and his beloved pig, "Glory of the Republic", who get separated from his family and caught behind Japanese lines when Japan invaded China in the late 1930's. It has some very scary moments. It also has tragedy. I think your child should be about 5th or 6th grade to be able to fully appreciate it. But the book will open your eyes as to what it might be like as a child to be caught in a war. The boy does get reunited with his family, but have your kleenex handy. As a parent you will definitely need it at the end.

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