This month's book reviews

A young man and his dragon companion
find adventure in a violent fantasy world

When the story starts, Eragon is only fifteen. He lives with his uncle and cousin, who are like father and brother to him. The three live on a small farm close to Carvahal, a town in the Alagaesia Empire. When Eragon isn't working on the farm, he enjoys hunting in remote areas, where other hunters fear to enter. On one of his hunting trips he finds what he believes is an unusual stone, blue and beautiful, which he hopes to sell to the traveling merchants who come though Carvahal. But those who see the stone react strangely to it and no one admits to having an idea of its true value.

Eragon takes the stone home and keeps it hidden. After a short while, strange sounds come from the stone, and to Eragon's astonishment a baby dragon hatches out of it. His pretty stone turned out to be a dragon's egg! The newly hatched dragon seemed to like Eragon and soon the two could transfer their thoughts to each other.

Even without knowing much about dragons, Eragon knew he should hide his new pet and keep its existence a secret. Unfortunately, the agents of the evil king of Alagaesia had already discovered that the dragon's egg was to be found near Carvahal. They would go to any lengths to possess the egg and to capture any person whom the dragon was willing to serve.

The plot becomes increasingly complex as Eragon is befriended by a mysterious resident of Carvahal, named Bron, and the two flee with the fast-growing dragon. Eragon barely escapes the king's evil agents who do destroy his farm home and murder his uncle. While fleeing for his life, Eragon finds that Bron can begin to train him as a "Dragon Rider," teaching him ancient magical powers and developing him as a warrior. The two, along with the dragon, now named Saphira, are on a mission to avenge the uncle's death and track down his killers.

Eragon battles monsters called urgals and and rescues a beautiful elfin princess. He becomes increasingly skilled and becomes a true dragon rider. He allies himself with citizens of an underground dwarf kingdom to fight an invading army of urgals. If this sounds like a book you would enjoy, the good news is that there are two more volumes to come that continue the adventures of Eragon.

 

A delinquent kid unwillingly becomes part
of a really wacky family of "artsy" characters

Jake Semple is described on the first page of "Surviving the Applewhites" as follows:

The boy slouching against the porch railing had scarlet spiked hair, a silver ring through one dark brown eyebrow, and too many earrings to count. He was dressed entirely in black - black T-shirt, black jeans, black high-top running shoes - and the look in his eyes was pure mean.

Jake's reputation was even worse than his mean appearance. He had been kicked out of every school he had attended. He was even rumored to have set fire to one of them. That was right after both his parents had been put in jail for growing and selling marijuana. No public school would any longer accept him as a student.

The Applewhite family ran a school called "The Creative Academy." The Academy was located on the family acreage called "Wits End." There was the main house, eight small cottages, the goat shed, a toolshed, and the barn. The sixteen-acre property had formerly been a motor lodge before the family purchased it for a homestead and more recently a school. Jake Semple's grandfather was a neighbor of the Applewhites. He had pleaded with them to take Jake into the school because in just the couple of weeks he had him, he had found out that he couldn't handle his grandson.

E. D. Applewhite, a girl about the same age as Jake, had been designated to introduce The Creative Academy to him. She really didn't want the job. She had been the only one of the whole Applewhite family to oppose their taking in of Jake. She knew Jake was bound for an institution for juvenile delinquents if they didn't take him in. But, she figured it was just a matter of time before he ended up there anyway. Meanwhile, she hoped he wouldn't burn down any of the Applewhite buildings.

E. D. was the only one of the Applewhites who didn't seem to have artistic talent. Her mother was a successful writer of mystery novels. Her father was a director of stage plays and was well known in theatrical circles. One brother was a painter and sculptor. A sister was a dancer and choreographer. Her grandfather was a wood worker, famous for his folk art furniture. Her four-year-old younger brother was still trying to decide what his talent was, although he did talk incessantly. A foul-mouthed parrot, two goats, and a basset hound named Winston were also members of the Applewhite group. E. D. seemed to be the only one who appreciated a structured and orderly environment. Her talent was to try to bring order to what was mostly chaos.

Jake discovered fairly quickly that his strange hair, body-piercing ornaments, and black clothes made no impression at all on the Applewhites. They were just too much into doing their own thing. It was no fun being rebelliously different if the people around you just didn't care. Jake had to decide whether to join in on the madness or leave to go to the juvenile detention center. By accident, he discovered he was a good singer and a fair stage actor. Before he knew what was happening, he was pulled into the chaos and found that he really liked it. When it all began to make some sense, he knew that the old Jake Semple no longer existed. He even accepted E. D.'s efforts to organize things and enforce a few rules.

The reader who goes along for the ride on this roller coaster of a story will have many laughs and end up appreciating individual differences.

 

A thirteen-year-old hides behind a new
identity in the witness protection program

Jack Osborne lived with his mom and dad and older sister. His life was fairly ordinary. His dad was a pilot and owned his own small air service. The business was doing well and the family had moved into a much nicer house and owned a couple of luxury automobiles. Jack was scared out of his wits one night when three armed men broke into the house and took him and his sister and mother captive for a short time. The three men finally left but only after threatening to kill them all if Jack's dad passed on any information to government agents about his drug smuggling activities.

It turns out that Jack's dad had been flying narcotics into the United States from South America. The armed men were from a South American drug cartel. These killers had found out that Jack's dad had been arrested and they wanted to make sure that Jack's dad did not cooperate with the Government agents by informing on his former bosses.

To keep the family from being killed, the three of them were put into a Government witness protection program. They had to leave their home quickly and secretly, assume new identities, and establish themselves in a different state. Jack found himself in an isolated town in Nevada along with his mom and sister. They had been placed in a small house and provided an older model car for transportation. Jack Osborne no longer was supposed to exist. His new identify was that of Zach Granger.

So, almost overnight Zach has to start out in a new school and make new friends. What he hates most of all is that nearly everything he tells anybody is now a lie. Even his blue eye color is a lie because he has contact lenses covering his own brown eyes. Zach is so angry that he loses his temper in the first few days in the new school and punches out a kid who taunts him. He ends up in the hands of the school disciplinarian, who is actually the custodian in the school. Sam, the custodian's name, takes a liking to Zach and helps him deal with his angry feelings. At school Zach also meets a neat girl, Catalin, who happens to be related to the Basque sheepherders who camp in the small mountains just outside of the town.

Zach is starting to like his new life and is finding out that he is quite comfortable with his friends Sam and Catalin . He very much enjoys his visits to the Basque camp up in the mountains. His enjoyment is short lived, however, when the killers from the drug cartel show up in his new hometown.

Now the question becomes can he save himself and his family from being kidnapped and taken to South America to be killed. Will Sam, who appears to be much more than a custodian, play some part in helping Zach stay alive?

 

A really weird and scary story about a girl
who lets her boredom get her into trouble

Coraline and her parents had just moved into a new home. Actually, it was a very old house with a garden and a lot of weeds. It was a big house, so big in fact that other people lived in different parts of it. Coraline liked to explore strange places and she found quite a few interesting things in the house and in the overgrown garden. She was especially curious about a large carved brown door in the corner of the drawing room. It was locked. She persuaded her mother to unlock the door and show her what was behind it. When her mom opened it, there was a brick wall just behind it. Her mom told Coraline that there was another apartment beyond the door and that it was for rent.

Coraline continued to explore but she became increasingly bored with so little to do. At night, she imagined strange figures roaming around that seemed to disappear through the unused door in the drawing room. When the opportunity presented itself, she decided to "borrow" the key to the mysterious door and look for herself at what might be behind it. A big mistake!

When she quietly slipped through the door, the brick wall was gone and instead there was a dark hallway. There was a cold, musty smell like something very old. She was surprised when she reached the end of the corridor to find a strange collection of rooms that sort of resembled her own home. She was really startled when a voice called her name. The figure sounded like her mother and even looked a little bit like her. Only this person had skin as white as paper and she was taller and thinner than Coralines's real mother was. Her fingers were too long and never stopped moving. Her dark red fingernails were curved and sharp.

The strange woman introduced herself as Coraline's "other mother" and said she had been waiting for Coraline for a long time. She said lunch was ready and told Coraline to go fetch her "other father" to join them for lunch. Both of her "other parents" had big black, shiny buttons for eyes. The lunch was roasted chicken and was delicious, much better than the food her real parents fixed. After lunch, the other mother told Coraline to go upstairs to her room and play with the rats she would find there!

Well, the story gets grosser and grosser. Coraline finds that for snacks her other mother eats large black beetles, still alive, from a brown paper bag. It becomes increasingly clear to Coraline that her new family members have no intention of ever letting her return to her real life on the other side of the door. In fact, she begins to suspect that her real mother and father are also being held captive in this new unreal world that she is imprisoned in.

Is Coraline smart enough and brave enough to save not only herself but her real parents as well? This is the kind of book that once you start reading it you will be too scared to put it down. You have to find out if Coraline ever gets back to her real life. And, of course, you know that if she does make it back, she will never complain about being bored again.