aethercowboy's reviews from LibraryThing

The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:10:30 -0500

aethercowboy's review: "In the Book of Revelation, John wrote: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from teh words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (22:18-19; KJV). While this statement most likely refers only to that which is described in the Book of Revelation, specifically with the prophecy contained therein, I feel that one should always be hesitant when producing condensations of the Bible as a larger work. Especially Bibles for children. In the Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones reinterprets pieces of the Bible to emphasize the similarities between some Old Testament events with their apparent analogues and fulfillment with Jesus. To make the stories approachable to a 4+ age group, she took several liberties that would cause many people to take a second glance before handing this over to their early reader without some parental oversight. Sure, children don’t need to get all that Song of Songs stuff, or X knowing Y and begetting Z, but I found that some of the stories as well as many, if not all, of the paraphrases, did not do their baseline stories the necessary justice. For starters, the description of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, especially Isaac’s tacit acceptance of his father about to sacrifice him (basically indicating that he didn’t struggle and was quiet, because he knew his daddy loved him), could be misinterpreted by a child’s relationship with a relative or close friend of the family with less than reputable intentions. Likewise, anything that seemed “too complicated” to put into a simple 2-3 page story was rent from the story. Not one mention of a single Judge appears, nor do important New Testament things like the resurrection of Lazarus. The book felt incomplete, even for being a bowdlerized Bible. Lloyd-Jones seems to miss the point of a lot of the stories, especially with her paraphrases of things like the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23, opting to take out more difficult to understand concepts for the sake of placating children. Further, it incorporates unfounded aspects of Christian folklore into what is purported to be a “Bible,” such as the presence of the “Three Wise Men,” which is not founded on any Biblical teaching, as the only book of the Bible (the Book of Matthew) to mention them never identifies how many. I found this addition to be quite presumptive, especially for a book intended for impressionable young children. In the end, this book, while not suitable for my young one due to the many glaring errors, omissions, and liberties taken, it may be suitable for your child, if you’re less about fidelity to the original work than you are about presenting stories of (and inspired by) the Bible in a child-friendly manner. I feel, though, that one should be mindful of the potentially indoctrinating input one provides a child who does not otherwise have a sturdy foundation upon which to set things unprovable such as religious beliefs."
Grand Rapids, Mich. : Zonderkidz, c2007.

Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead by Christopher M. Moreman

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:21:20 -0500

aethercowboy's review: "Zombies Are Us is a collection of critical essays on one subject or another, and how it (usually loosely) connects to zombies. Most of the contributors are hardcore academics, and by their very prose they let you know it, unhesitatingly using elitist jargon to enforce the incongruous juxtaposition of their pet subject to the walking dead. This book was very pretentious from the get-go. I found that the authors never truly considered their prospective target audience while writing and compiling this book. While I was expecting a book to appeal to somebody with a fascination of zombies (as readable, as say, Dendle’s <em>Zombie Movie Encyclopedia</em>), I imagine that their target audience was, in fact, themselves. Aside from the apparent elitism and overt lingua academia, I further found that the essays in this book struggled, if not stretched to fit the subject of the essay with zombies. In the end, we had a weak thesis statement, several pages showing off what the author knows about his or her pet subject and zombies, a few weak juxtapositions, and finally, a summary in which most authors declared that they “hoped” that they did a good job of proving their thesis. If you are an elitist academic who gets some sense of satisfaction from reading other elitist academics write about the sort of things that elitist academics like to write about, then you’ll love this book. If you’re just a regular person who doesn’t have a Ph.D. in some esoteric form of philosophy or literature, then you’ll probably be lost by this book, and struggle to get through it. In the end, what should have been a book about zombies, by zombies, for zombies was instead a book about academics, by academics, for academics. We’ll let the zombies decide, though, if their brains are worth munching."
Mcfarland (2011), Paperback, 228 pages

Knife of Truth: Road to Megara by Cynthia A Willerth

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:18:38 -0500

aethercowboy's review: "This was a terrible book. Really. The story, marketed as post-apocalyptic steampunk high-fantasy falls short of each of these. There was a big disaster, so it’s technically “post-apocalyptic,” there’s a train, so, I guess you could say it’s “steampunk,” and there’s a kingdom with a feudal-era type of monarchy. That makes it high-fantasy, right? The storytelling was choppy, and very, very, very annoying, as the “POV” character of each chapter would interject their own uninteresting thoughts into the prose, expositing so that the reader is aware of what’s going on, because it’s apparently too much of a hassle to actually show it through the prose. Meanwhile, when the characters are talking, they’re further expositing, for the sake of the reader, again, because the POV character can’t know EVERYTHING. These are annoying. Normal people don’t talk to each other like that. People don’t typically recap the events that happened between chapters with those that experienced it with them, except for in poor prose. The characters, beside only knowing how to communicate in exposition, also were inconsistent. A character would want to kill a character (like, literally kill, not just dislike) one moment, and then be okay with them the next, or even cheery. While reading this, I was like, “What?” <em>Probably didn’t take careful notes on the characters while she was writing it. Better be careful not to do likewise in my own writing. Probably should tell other people this for their own writing as well.</em>. The book was also edited very poorly. Based on my observations of the publisher, the editor (and owner of the web registration) for this company (Smatterings Books) has the same last name as the author. This indicates to me that they are most likely related somehow. However, I’ve read many self-published, and effectively self-published, books to have seen some that were either edited by the author or a close friend or relation that did not have glaring spelling errors, misplaced commas, and crazy sentence fragments that made me die a little on the inside. In fact, I would imagine running Microsoft Word’s Grammar Wizard would have cleaned up a lot of these nicely. In the end, this was a terrible book. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. Ever. It’s not the worst book I’ve ever read, but it’s definitely not worth reading. There are so many quality books out there, and this is not one of them. I miss the days when LibraryThing Early Reviewer books actually came from real publishers who had a professional editing staff."
SmatteringsBooks (2011), Paperback, 320 pages

Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Wayne Hale

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:18:01 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "Wings In Orbit is a comprehensive overview of the Space Shuttle, as well as the various technologies that brought it into being, as well as the technologies that resulted from it. The book has full color illustrations and images, all pertaining to the Shuttle in one way or another, and features a plethora of testimonials from former NASA people, as well as notable people from NASA contractors, the government, and other affiliates. My biggest problem with this book is that it reads just like every other NASA document, only with a little bit of color. All the metrics are in metric (English), even when it's completely irrelevant, e.g. "can detect x for kilometers (miles)." Also, the constant, redundant definition of acronyms, initialisms, and abbreviations tends to get annoying. This book is recommended for those who want some sort of memorobelia to recollect the Shuttle, who are avid about space technology, or who need something to keep a door open. While I enjoyed it, for the most part, from a technical standpoint, I found continuous reading of it to be trying. Good in small portions."
NASAs Johnson Center (2011), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 500 pages

Doctor Who Volume 1: Fugitive by Tony Lee

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:00:10 -0500

aethercowboy's review: "I picked up this graphic novel one day while I was visiting the library. I started reading it because (a) I like Doctor Who, and (b) I like graphic novels. I found, beyond the art, that the story was very engaging, and that I had trouble putting it down (though I didn't get it done in one sitting due to time constraints). This is part of an ongoing graphic novel series to further milk Doctor Who franchise, fitting adventures and whatnot into the blank slots that happen wherever they can between episodes, like every extended media does. The art for the first artist makes everybody look like mangled Shar Peis, and the second artist makes everybody look square and boxy, like Red Dwarf's Kryten. The story, though, helps the reader overcome these artistic obstacles to get to an otherwise enjoyable story. If you are a fan of Doctor Who and don't mind "licensed media," then you might find some enjoyment in this volume, and even in this series."
IDW Publishing (2010), Paperback, 152 pages

The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:39:02 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "I liked this book. Of course, I'm a big fan of A Series of Unfortunate Events. This is one of those books that, unless you're a big fan or a completist, you probably wouldn't gain any more understanding from. In alternating letters, it very loosely explains what happens after The End, as well as gives one a bigger glimpse of the character of Lemony Snicket. Not for everybody, but I certainly enjoyed it on a narrative level, a subtextual level, and a book-design level."
New York, NY : HarperCollins, 2006.

The Halloween Encyclopedia by Lisa Morton

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:36:12 -0500

aethercowboy's review: "I was less than impressed by The Halloween Encyclopedia by Lisa Morton. The second edition was greatly enhanced, so the forward said, but all in all, I found that this book would probably only be of interest to somebody who already had an unhealthy fascination with Halloween. Morton's prose seemed very biased, finding any way she could to link Thing X with Halloween. The images included with the entries were mostly vintage Halloween postcards, most of which by the same artist; amateur/family photographs of people in Halloween costumes or doing Halloween activities, or photographs of collectibles that would seem more fiting on an eBay page than in an authoritative volume on a particular holiday. Further, she did one of my major pet peeves, confusing Frankenstein with his monster. You'd think someone versed in horror lore wouldn't make such a mistake. All in all, this book isn't worth the $75 they're charging for it. I'd recommend getting it if you can find it for $25 or less, and want a quaint coffee table book to put out between Labor Day and Thankgiving. Again, I recommend this book only for people who LOVE Halloween, possibly to the point of rendering it as "Hallowe'en.""
McFarland (2011), Edition: 2, Hardcover, 263 pages

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:01:25 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M, Valente is, what I imagine, what happens when somebody wishes to write their own version of Alice in Wonderland. The book was readible and had an interesting plot and characters, however, many of the protagonist's actions seemed forced, rendering her, a girl named September, as a victim of the story. In addition, the prose at time was borderline pretentious, making a less than enjoyable experience every once in a while for all but the most equally pretentious reader. I felt that this book was both good and bad. The concept was good, but the delivery was bad. The story was good, but the telling was bad. In the end, I would recommend this book to a reader who likes more pretentious rehashings of Alice in Wonderland, or perhaps enjoys a pseudo-classic style fairytale. Those who might be turned off by this may find that they only half enjoy the book, much as I did, and will suffer a similar dichotomy of feelings."
Feiwel & Friends (2011), Hardcover, 256 pages

Dancing with Eternity by John Patrick Lowrie

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:18:14 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "John Patrick Lowrie, probably best known for his voice acting roles in various modern video games, is, as it turns out, also an author. Lowrie, in his debut novel, Dancing With Eternity, proves that not only can he act, but he also has the literary skills to write, the knowledge of scientific principles to make it seem realistic, and the understanding of the genre to make it work. The story takes place in a distant future, where people “re-boot” when they get too old, getting a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth, or …) chance at youth. The narrator, Mohandas, meets with a mysterious ship’s captain named Steel, who offers him a crew position on her ship. Down on his luck Mohandas, one of the oldest people in the known universe, is happy to accept, but soon realizes that Steel has more secrets than she lets on, and is forced to tag along on her quest that threatens the lives of the otherwise immortal humans at her side. I must admit that Lowrie writes readable fiction that is well plotted and evenly paced. The story flows from the words, and the words take you on an intergalactic journey through the cosmos. Not once does it feel rushed, nor does it feel like he couldn’t figure out what to do next. The story naturally unfolds from the beginning, and ties up nicely at the end. My only issue with the story was that it seemed somewhat influenced, on some level, by Heinlein, whose writings I don’t particularly like. Other than that, it’s a solid story bound to be enjoyed by the fans of many types of science fiction."
Camel Press (2011), Edition: 1st, Paperback, 416 pages

The Scoloderus Conspiracy by D. A. Blankinship

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:21:53 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "In this futuristic less-than-thrilling thriller, we meet the UATF, and their mortal enemies, the so-called terrorists, the Libre Voyageurs. The plot, wrapped around a conspiracy or two, one of which is the eponymous one. I found the pseudo-futuristic setting unnecessary, as the events could have conceivably happened in any contemporary or not-too-distant-future thriller. I also found the way certain characters act at times to be only for the purpose of furthering the suspense. That is, when they're not discussing the plot to make sure that the slow reader can follow along with what's happened so far, or, even worse, to explain the mystery through dialogue, instead of revealing it through events. Quite a let down for all the built up suspense. The Scoloderus Conspiracy could have been a good book. It had the right physiology to be one. However, some literary mutation happened along the way to prevent it from living up to its true potential. I'd say that this book could be improved upon by replacing most of the chatter with more action. Just my opinion, though."
Leathers Publishing (2006), Edition: 1st, Paperback, 368 pages

The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Yeskov

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:44:14 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "At first I was intrigued to read some unauthorized, popular parallel fiction based on the Lord of the Rings, as told from the perspective of the other guys. However, I found that with Yeskov's addition of several anachronistic elements (mostly to no avail), and his deviating greatly from the story and setting presented by Tolkien, I was less than thrilled to read this book. Likewise, there were several problems I had with dialogue and word choice. I am not sure if the blame for this falls on the English translator (Markov), or if the actual Russian was this choppy, but it really could have used some smoothing out. In fact, the narrative voice as a whole suffered through the presentation of this story. I'm glad that Yeskov wrote it, because it sets a very important standard with respect to the flawed understanding of a "derivative work" under U. S. Copyright law. I'm just not glad I read it. It was so much better in my mind before I made it a real thing."

The BFG by Roald Dahl

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:19:03 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "More like Big Freaking Deal... This book is fairly lousy. The giant's dialect is annoying. The plot is laced with hypocrisies. The story itself just sort of falls into a pit near the end, to be devoured by giants. Roald Dahl has many good books. This is not one of them."
New York : Puffin Books, 2007.

Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill by William Linehan

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:36:08 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "When a guy with schizophrenia, who can’t get over how awesome he was when he was an adolescent, takes his annoying child and geriatric mentor (who seems to have dementia) to an Indian reservation to meet up with a woman with dissociative identity disorder, another one who is manic depressive, and yet another who hits the ceremonial pipes just a bit too much, the reader is whisked away into a completely uninteresting story. I thought this book would be neat because it featured everybody’s favorite snake wielding, cyclone taming cowboy, Pecos Bill. I was wrong. While there are several ways to tell a good story, Linehan does not use a single one. The book reads like a series of pseudophilosophical discussions, in which the zinger is a really stupid pun, and then, when everybody’s done talking, they can get up and move around and do stuff, and occasionally mention how awesome the main character was when he was an adolescent. This book was torture, and five hundred pages of it. One of the blurbers compared it to Faulkner, or Joyce, or Pynchon. I must say, this can’t be true. I like reading Faulkner and Joyce and Pynchon. Linehan, on the other hand, can be safely avoided. Don’t be fooled by the promise of American folklore. This book doesn’t deliver. And don’t think for a second that you’ll get a splendid story, or even a halfway decent narrative. You’ll just get page after page of inanity, at times making you want to throw the book into a wood chipper, or just wish that the author got carpal tunnel from writing so much stupid writing that you made yourself read, just to see if it got better (it didn’t). This is 500 pages I’ll never get back."
Sagebrush Press (2011), Paperback, 590 pages

Ozma of Oz by Eric Shanower

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 11:01:05 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "Whenever Marvel publishes a new Oz adaptation, I MUST HAVE IT. I’m not sure how long this habit will go. There are 14 Baum books, and 40 canonical Oz books, and I suppose also that human lives have a finite timespan... But who knows where it’ll end. All I know is that for as long as they make ‘em (and they’re still just as good as the originals), I’ll keep gettin’ ‘em. In this volume, the third one, we return to Dorothy, en route to Australia with her Uncle Henry. A storm blows her overboard, and she finds herself in a mysterious fairly land known as Ev. Here she navigates obstacles, meets up with old friends, and tries to make her way back home. I love Shanower’s writing, taking the books and condensing them down to their most interesting parts, and the way an entire scene is summarized by a single image can be downright hilarious at times. Likewise, Young’s drawing fits the world of Oz (and Ev) to a T... err Z (and V). The characters each have their own look which suits them greatly, and while the drawings may look ragged, they really, really work. If you love the Oz mythos as much as I do, your collection is incomplete without this Marvel literary adaptation. And keep your eyes peeled for the next volume, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, probably already available as periodicals at your local comic book store."
Marvel (2011), Hardcover, 200 pages

The Shattering by Kathryn Lasky

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 22:22:34 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "In the fifth book in the owl series, Lasky has decided to limit the narrative focus on a single topic: shattering, which is apparently the worst thing you can do to an owl, so far. Again, the Ga’Hoole parliament shows poor judgment by rooming Eglantine with one of the reformed POWs of the last book, Ginger. I guess if she says she’s changed her ways, that’s good enough, huh? Ginger, then proceeds to try to “shatter” Elgantine by putting magnetic flecks of iron into her nest, to screw up her internal compass, which I imagine acts not only as a navigational aid, but also as a moral compass? At this point, it feels like Lasky is just stretching out the narrative because she wants to have more books than Harry Potter. But, those tiny splinters you get when you scrape the bottom of the barrel are abundant here."
New York : Scholastic, c2004.

The Siege by Kathryn Lasky

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:08:15 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "This is the fourth book in the Ga’Hoole series, and just like that economic law of diminishing returns, this book is no exception. In this volume, the great Ga’Hoole tree is under attack by an army of owls who believe that Tyto owls are the pure owls, in a very blatant take on World War II, only with the roles of Hitler being a barn own with a metal mask and Churchill being a squinty-eyes owl with a penchant for caterpillars. Nothing really exciting happens, aside from the parliament of the Ga’Hoole tree showing themselves to have terrible character judgment, even after the resident mole (also an owl) is proven to be leaking vital information to the baddies. If you’re planning on going this far, I’d recommend you plan on stopping when you’re done. It really doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of life left in this series."
New York : Scholastic, 2004.

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:24:59 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "Matilda, by Roald Dahl, tells the story of an under-appreciated genius named Matilda, who lives with her very stupid family. She teaches herself to read, and devours the children’s section of the library and moves on to more classics before even starting school. When she gets to school, she is deemed exceptional by her teacher, but by pretty much nobody else. This book was lengthy for a Dahl book, and that’s partly because it has a lot of stuff in it. There is a great deal of conflict that Matilda faces, as well as conflict witnessed by her. She is at constant war with her parents who insist on being shallow and shady, preferring to spend their time in front of a television than in a good book; her mother obsessed with the looks she simply doesn’t have; her father making a living selling used cars a la any used car salesman stereotype. She also faces conflict at school from the notorious school headmistress: Miss Trunchbull, a disciplinarian so frightening and so unorthodox that the parents wouldn’t even believe their children’s complaints were their children not so terrified of saying anything. However, for as lengthy as the book was, I had some issues with it. When Matilda eventually discovers that she has telekinesis, most of the book has already gone past. It seems like an afterthought, as it is not foreshadowed or alluded to at all until it happens, and does not happen close enough to the beginning of the book to seem like it was truly planned. The second big issue was the ending, which, introduces a new 8-point story arc in what should properly be an epilogue, or, at least, a denouement. All in all, though, the story’s strengths outweighed its weaknesses, filled with humor, quirkiness, and a heroine to whom any under-appreciated genius could totally relate."
London, Puffin Books, 2007

The Rescue by Kathryn Lasky

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:33:23 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "This is the third owl book by Lasky, and it’s more of the same: interesting story, lousy narrative, annoying vocabulary lessons, stupid songs, and, of course, a shark is jumped. I had serious issues with the way this book ended. To avoid spoilers, I’ll leave it at this: I thought that it was implausible, yet predictable. After reading The Rescue, I wondered “what’s the point of the rest of the series?” There are five more books set in this owl-y world, but really, there’s nothing much to do except rush to the last epic battle with massive fields of owls (and other creatures), probably rendered in film (if they do make a sequel to the Zach Snyder-directed film) by the software Weta used for Lord of the Rings, only a bit more feathery. But, really, the books from here on out will fail to capture my interest, only reading those that I already have, and stopping when I’m done. If you’re like me, this will be the absolute last Ga’Hoole book you’ll ever need to read. But if you’re like me, you’ll also have two more Ga’Hoole books still on your shelf to read."
New York : Scholastic, c2004.

Learning XNA 4.0: Game Development for the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7 by Aaron Reed

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:22:35 -0500

aethercowboy's review: "XNA is an application framework provided by Microsoft. It integrates into their Visual Studio applications, and lets you, the user, create video games playable on the Windows PC, Xbox 360, and Windows 7 Phone using any .NET-compatible programming language. Aaron Reed, a professor of computer science with a penchant for video game design, has provided us a wonderful addition to O’Reilly’s “Learning...” series. However, I must note that this book is most definitely not a good place to start if you don’t already understand C#. While you could, theoretically, write XNA games in Visual Basic, or C++, or, if you’ve acquired third-party plugins, Java or even Perl, Reed’s examples are entirely in C#. Because of that, if you’re not already familiar with that language, I’d recommend picking up and working through O’Reilly’s Learning C# prior to working on this book if you’d like to maximize your learning opportunities. While I had some issues with the code examples (for example, a lot of retyping instead of writing generalized functions to do the same thing with fewer lines of code), I understood that his code was probably like that to not get the Learner of XNA to not be encumbered by better coding standards that would likely confuse more than educate. He covered a lot of excellent topics, including the basics for 2D and 3D (that is, polygons, not two simultaneous images) games, as well as covering the differences between programming for Windows, Xbox, and Windows 7 Phone (It’s advisable to have Windows 7 on your PC, otherwise you can’t get the Phone libraries). He also covered multiplayer gaming, both using split-screen functionality and using the XNA networking library and the Windows Live system (however, when I tried to create an Xbox profile for my Windows Live account, the system was down). What I would have liked to see, however, were more topics, such as making save states, turn-based games, and perhaps even networking without using the Windows Live stuff. And, of course, I’d love to see a Programming XNA 4.0 book in the near future, covering all the wonderful things one could do with XNA in a telephone directory of delight. The lack of these features, however, does not make the book worth reading. Any additional topics could probably be easily learned after reading this book by Googling “xna topic here”. I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in video game design."
O'Reilly Media (2010), Edition: 1, Paperback, 544 pages

The Journey by Kathryn Lasky

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:19:31 -0400

aethercowboy's review: "The Journey, by Kathryn Lasky, is the second book in her children’s series about owls. In this book, the protagonist, Soren, and his three close friends, all owls, travel to the legendary Great Ga’Hoole Tree, which, as far as those they pass along the way, is merely the stuff of legends. This book is very much like its predecessor, which is to say, the plot is somewhat interesting, but the narrative does not do it justice. However, due to the law of diminishing returns, a lot of the same stuff isn’t always good, even if it is “comfortable.” In this book, it seemed Lasky got more annoying the the Owl Vocabulary Lessons, in which an unusual word is introduced, because that’s just the word owls use for that sort of thing, and from then on out, it’s used in every other sentence, or at least, it seems that way. It does get annoying. In addition, the character Twilight’s chants/songs are really annoying, too. In the end, this book was nothing spectacular, and probably wouldn’t be of great interest to a reader whose tastes include more recognized children’s fantasy authors. In the end, if you’re looking for something you could zip through in about a day (or a week, if you pace yourself), then this book may be good. Otherwise, read something a bit better."
New York : Scholastic, c2003.