November 2004     Vol.5 Issue 11

This month's book reviews

Suspense and drama built into a kids' historical novel

The twelve-year-old main character in "Night Journeys" faces not only dangers but hard decisions that severely test his judgment. What choices will he make when events seem to pit him against his stern but otherwise considerate guardian? Which should govern his actions - his conscience or his fear of the law?

"Night Journeys" provides its young readers with a feel for life in the pre-revolutionary American colonies. It also presents a picture of eighteenth century British justice which often condemned children to deportation and sentenced them into years of indentured servitude for minor breaches of the law.

A self-described weirdo strives
for acceptance in a fourth grade classroom

Most fourth graders will tell you that a kid who always raises his hand with the right answer, who always turns in his homework on time, who says arithmetic is his favorite subject, who loves orderliness and neatness and hates noise and talking in class is absolutely a "weirdo." If he brings the same thing for lunch to school every day, that really nails it down!

This little book, "Fourth Grade Weirdo" pokes fun at pompous principals, take-charge school secretaries, overly-ambitious school board members, and other education-related occurrences. Still, a young reader will emerge from all the fun with a better tolerance of the diversity that makes up a normal school classroom.

The trip of a lifetime for an
eleven-year-old girl turns into a nightmare

"Three Days" by Donna Jo Napoli reads like a Hitchcock movie script. Pre-teen Jackie Holt is the major character and narrator. After the heart attack of her father, she is isolated in Italy and unable to speak or understand the language. She is abducted and taken to an isolated location, but the two men who abduct her try to make it clear that they mean her no harm. At the isolated house where she is taken, Jackie finds a sad woman who tries to treat Jackie as her own daughter.

It takes three suspense-filled days for Jackie to understand what is really going on and to prevail upon her captors to set her free.

An excellent retelling and easier-to-read
version of an English classic

That this retold version of "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens is excellently done should not be a surprise. The retelling is that of Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, the Great-Great-Great Granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Any of you who read and loved the original classic will be impressed by how much of it (setting, plot, characters) is captured in this thin 155 page paperback. Of course, no abridged version of a classic replaces the original. The intent is that the young reader of this version will later read the original…just like some readers years ago went from Classic Comics, or perhaps Cliff Notes in college, to a reading of an original classic.