The Return of the King, by Colin

I recently read Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is the third and final book in the LORD OF THE RINGS series. It is a thrilling fantasy adventure. Can the great cities survive The Storm? Can Sam save Frodo from the orcs? Will they save Middle Earth and destroy the Ring!? Thou shalt not know unless thou read thee book. One of the best things about the book was you never know what will happen next. Sometimes you don’t know everything about a rider. Other times characters swear service to a king without any real reason. The second thing I liked about this book is, as I went through the whole series, I discovered similarities between these creatures and other fantasy creatures. When my dad and I read through it we tried to find similarities between these creatures to World of Warcraft creatures. I even was able to find a similarity with two creatures that dad didn’t. The Return of the King was a epic book.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Allan Bradley

I have read so many good reviews of this book, and then there were two sequels out, I thought I might finally read it.  Unfortunately, it did not live up to its reviews.  This book is a quaint little book, along the line of Alexander McCall's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, although not as entertaining in ways because as amusing and precocious as Flavia is, she is not as worldly as Precious.

Told from the point of view of a smart and emotionally neglected 11-year old, this book is the story of Flavia and her finding of a body in her garden and all that ensues from that find, including her father's arrest, her kidnapping, and lots of biking around and trespassing.  In the end, I found no connection to Flavia or to any of her family, I figured out the murderer well before she did, that being telegraphed in the writing, and I was less than satisfied with the story.  It was all a little too quaint.  It also could just have easily been found in the young adult section, although much of that has more going for it than this book did.

Classic series of the week - Tripods

A couple of years ago, I was thinking of this book and I searched high and low trying to figure out what the name and author were.  Apparently, though, you only have to ask around a little to find out what the book with the evil tripods capping the kids in the community in order to control them, and the kids who ran away from it, and someone will come up with the title.  I have very strong memories of these books, and still recall the moment when I realized that the destroyed old city that they were wandering around at one point in the book was Paris.  It was amazing to me at the time.  I found them and Colin read the first of the series, The White Mountains, and really enjoyed it, although I haven't been able to get him to read the next two -- although I must admit, I don't really remember much of the next two either.  It's this first book that is really notewothy.  

Heck! Where the Bad Kids Go

I find these books very clever and entertaining.   A retelling of Dante's inferno with kids, each book is a separate ring of "Heck."  The first is when the Marlo and Milton first arrive in heck, the second is greed and the third, gluttony.  Book 4, due out next May, called Fibble, is clearly about lying.  Each follows the adventures of Milton Fauster and his sister Marlo and their friends as they work their way through Heck, a boarding school run by Bea Elsa Bubb.  You call tell from these names that the author is speaking just as much to the adults reading these books as to the children, who will be surprised as they grow up of all they learned about the literary traditions of Hell from these.  Milton's best friend is Virgil (of course) and there is Marlo(we) (another author of a Faust book).  Teachers include Lizzie Borden and Nixon, who amusingly teaches ethics.  Most of these allusions go right over the kids' heads, but once I pointed them out to Colin, he started to find them himself and thought it hilarious that the book would take such liberty with literature.  What I read with him was hilarious and well put together.  An entertaining take on classic literature.

Various recommendations for grades, from 3-8, I would go for the midrange of these 4-6.   Colin has been reading them voraciously and am sure will leap at the new one in the spring.  AR Levels 6.0-6.4, 8-14 pts.