middle grade

Book Review: How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm

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How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm
How to Train Your Dragon #7
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Because these Vikings can never do anything normally, an inter-tribe swimming race means that the winner is actually the one who makes it back last, because that means that person could stay in the water longest. Actually, the contest of endurance isn’t that strange, but calling it a race is. Anyway, Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi end up abducted by someone Hiccup ticked off in a previous book and that leads to them battling Polarserpents and attempting to discover America (which no one believes exists).

I definitely liked this book more than the previous. (Though Big-Boobied Bertha and her unusually large chest makes an appearance again, it’s not nearly as involved as last time.) Hiccup and Fishlegs still take a lot of flak from their tribe, but then they are able to get away from them for a while. And Fishlegs had some nice development in this story. Though that has made me realize how little development Hiccup gets in these books. He’s been good and smart and level-headed from the start, and I’m not sure he has anywhere to go from there.

Some aspects from previous books are brought back here and there are a few elements that are possibly left open for future stories, all of which made the story more intriguing. The narration continues to be great, though it feels a little like David Tennant was running out of new voices for some of the different side characters or creatures by this point, since some of the voices are seeming a bit more ridiculous. Overall, though, this book was another fun addition to the series.

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Book Review: Silent Extraction

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Silent Extraction
Coordinator Files Trilogy #1
by J.N. Timmer

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure, puzzles

When your parents and sister are kidnapped and you have good reason to believe the kidnappers after after you too, what do you do? This book is a call-back to the old Choose Your Own Adventure franchise, except the choices are puzzles that the reader must solve in order to move on correctly.

Classic Choose Your Own Adventure books were a big thing when I was growing up, but I remember that I didn’t enjoy them that much, because they kinda stressed me out. I didn’t trust my instincts and decision-making skills, and would worry about making the wrong decision and ending the story early. However, a book of the same type that requires you to solve a puzzle correctly to move is more objective than subjective, which appeals to me. The book is written in 2nd person, which is pretty normal for this kind of book, though I am a little confused about the age the MC is supposed to be and thus the age range the book is intended for. This might be on purpose, but that means it’s difficult to know how to gauge the difficulty of the puzzles based on the age the book is meant for. For me, an adult who enjoys escape rooms and other puzzle-y things, some of the puzzles were super easy and some were a bit too arbitrary or subjective. I think I got only one completely wrong, and though I did understand the explanation given, I might have wished for a little more explanation before making my decision; and I kinda just guessed another one or two that I got right. However, if the puzzles were all super easy, it wouldn’t be very fun, and there are hints for every puzzle in the back of the book.

The story is appropriately exciting and even gives the young MC a realistic reason for being involved in the action and danger without involving police or other adults. It’s an overall quick read, even with the time spent solving puzzles. It was a fast-paced race to first save your family from some very dangerous people. The only aspect of the story that I found a bit off was one wrong answer that leads to a brief page in which you basically kill your own dad. It felt a bit extreme to me.

When I read a self-published book, it is my intention not to let things that a professional editor would help with affect my view too much. I’m not saying that there is no burden of responsibility here, but it’s harder for self-published authors. So while it did not affect my rating, I will at least mention that there are several mistakes throughout the text; for example, there are a lot of comma errors and one “your” that should have been a “you’re.” It can detract from the book for some, so let that be a warning. And I was sad when one puzzle instruct me to cut pieces apart and put them together to find the right page number to go to next, for various reasons, one of which is that I like being able to share books with others. I didn’t know this was a one-and-done story. But since it’s the only puzzle like that, the author could easily provide a link to a replacement puzzle online, allowing the original reader to print the puzzle and pass it on with the book (though he’d also have to separate the puzzle from the story text on the other side of the same page, but again, easily done). On the other hand, I am seeing now that the book is fairly low priced on Amazon, so I guess it’s not a huge deal to buy a new copy if you read the book, destroy the one page, and then want to share the book with someone else. And to be fair, I didn’t have to cut the pieces apart; it was pretty easy to solve just by looking at it. (On an unrelated note, there’s a Kindle version of this book, which makes me wonder how that cutting puzzle would work.)

Overall, I really liked the idea of a puzzle-led Choose Your Own Adventure type of book, and this did deliver well on that idea. It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but not the kind that I find too often these days (especially in self-published books) where even the story goal of the first book isn’t resolved—fortunately, it is. I think that kids aged around 10-12 who like puzzles and books with adventure or thrills would like this book.

I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.

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Book Review: Mandie and the Ghost Bandits

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Mandie and the Ghost Bandits
Mandie #3
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian historical fiction

I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen, and I read some of them to my now-teen daughter when she was younger. Nostalgia definitely affects my reviews for this series, and I’m okay with that. Though I am also willing to admit the flaws in the books. Fortunately, this one was less aggravating than the previous. As a parent now, I was particularly interested in Mandie’s mom’s difficulty in parenting her. With the gap in their relationship between the time Mandie was a baby and when they found each other again over a decade later, Elizabeth doesn’t really know how to be a mom and isn’t very good at standing up to her very willful daughter. It also gives Mandie an actual dimension beyond just coming across as perfect all the time, though it’s fairly subtle. On the other hand, Mandie definitely displays a personality shortcoming in this book, so there’s another flaw. It was a little difficult to understand why Tsa’ni was suddenly so kind and friendly at the end of the previous book, then here was rude again, though he never got quite as bad as he had been before again.

One of my biggest overall issues with this series so far is the theology. In my review of the first book, I mentioned that there seemed to be a salvation-by-works message. Here, I was bothered when Mandie tells the wife of a dear friend that they had to trust God to heal that dear friend who was badly injured, and there doesn’t seem to be any allowance for the possibility that God wouldn’t heal him. And then when he takes a turn for the worst, very soon after Mandie’s insight, Mandie herself falls to pieces and loses all semblance of trusting in God. She is supposed to come across as wise and full of faith, but she doesn’t follow her own advice, which is a bit lacking in understanding anyway. I can’t help but wonder what kind of impact this might have on kids who don’t have a full understanding of God yet. So keep that in mind if you’re kids might read these books. Outside of that, the story was good overall.

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Book Review: The Activist

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The Activist
Theodore Boone #4
by John Grisham
read by Richard Thomas


My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fiction

When the powers that be discuss building a bypass around the city of Strattenburg, thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone finds himself in the middle of the politics from both sides of the issue. A friend whose family’s home is threatened by the bypass thinks Theo can somehow help, but Theo knows he’s in over his head. Even his own dad is for the bypass. What’s a kid lawyer to do?

Whew, this book took a lot of turns and kept me invested all throughout. The issue of the bypass, though it could easily be dry and make the plot slow, is handled well by Grisham. Both sides of the issue are represented well, and though Theo does probably pick his side pretty quickly, he recognizes that there’s really nothing a 13-year-old can do. Meanwhile, there’s an unrelated subplot in which Theo’s leadership are questioned during a camping trip with his fellow scouts, and as weird as it might sound, I really appreciated the way Theo handles it (which is not well), because it keeps him from being too mature or even “perfect” for his age. As much as I’ve been enjoying these books, Theo can get a little unrealistic, so his immaturity on the scout trip brings him back to earth a bit. In the end, this book has quite a different feel than the rest of the series, yet it’s just as good. Maybe my favorite, though it’s difficult to pick between this and the previous.

Richard Thomas continues to do a great job with the narration. It’s probably not super important to read the books in order, though I’d recommend it. Overall, I’d say whether or not a teenager or pre-teen will be interested in this book will depend on what kind of fiction they like—if fast-paced action is important, this probably won’t suit them. If they’re interested in realistic fiction about crime and law and trials, this could be fascinating for them.

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Book Review: A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons

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A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons
How to Train Your Dragon #6
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

In order to prove that his group of Vikings are better burglars than another group, Hiccup and his friends sneak into a Viking library to steal a book. Things go wrong, of course, in fairly predictable ways by this point in the series. Unfortunately, there’s not enough new here to make it particularly enjoyable. Hiccup is ridiculed, as always, but manages to pull off the unexpected, as always. This book feels more like the author is trying to get a not terribly subtle message across—books are important. Libraries are important. Banning books is bad. And alongside that message, she feels the need to talk about a woman’s breasts more than I’d be comfortable with in adult book, and this book is for kids! The leader of a mostly friendly rival tribe is named Big-Boobied Bertha, and she’s been in several of the previous books as well. I was a bit taken aback by the name before, but she had a pretty small role in the past and I guess I passed it off as a British quirk. In this book, not only is she involved a lot more, her “gigantic” breasts are described and referenced several times. It is absolutely unnecessary and just plan ridiculous in a book meant for 10-12 year olds. So though I’m probably in the minority of being bothered by this, let this be a warning for those who are like me. Maybe skip this one.

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Book Review: Isle of Ever

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Isle of Ever
Book #1
by Jen Calonita

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Twelve-year-old Everly Benedict (who goes by Benny) is presented with a series of clues and riddles to solve in order to inherit a large estate from an ancestor who lived 200 years ago. Since she isn’t sure how her mom is going to pay this month’s rent, it seems like an answer to all of their problems. But she only has 2 weeks to finish the game and is warned not to be careful who she trusts. And soon enough, it becomes clear that there’s more than an inheritance on the line.

Right up front, whatever else I thought about this book, the ending was a huge let-down. Not just a cliffhanger, but a full-stop that I see all too often in self-published books but don’t expect in traditionally published books from established authors. As an author myself, I firmly believe that not resolving an obvious story goal within that same book is a huge no-no, and unless I seriously misjudged what Calonita intended the story goal to be here, it was definitely not fully resolved. Even the final riddle was only partially solved. And though Benny is out of time, somehow she’s going to have to play a whole new game in order to “win”? Maybe the time will be extended, but either way, the ending was just so underwhelming for me.

Up to that point, the book was okay. Not stellar, but not interesting enough to make me curious about what was going on. The story is told from Benny’s POV with journal entries from her ancestor, Evelyn Terry, thrown in throughout. Those journal entries were written in 1825, though they did not sound like that to me much at all. The main downside (other than the ending) for me is that there are a lot of fantastical elements that either don’t make sense or don’t seem consistent. And very little, if anything, is explained, though that may just go along with the lack of resolution. I don’t think we were given enough chance to feel connected to the characters in that timeline to care as much as we should have about what happened to them. And quite frankly, I didn’t feel that the catalyst for the main story-propelling incident in Evelyn Terry’s timeline had enough urgency to it. 

So in the end, will I read the next one when it comes out? Probably, since it comes out in a few months so I hopefully won’t have time to forget everything about this book before diving right in where this one left off. But do I recommend it? Well…it really depends a lot on how you feel about a lack of resolution. Once the 2nd book comes out in March, you can “binge read” them and maybe it won’t seem so bad, especially knowing that this first book will end this way. But since I don’t know if some of the unclear elements or inconsistencies will be cleared up in the 2nd book, it’s really difficult to say whether I recommend the book or series as a whole yet. Stay tuned…

Thank you to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Kids for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: The Accused

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The Accused
Theodore Boone #3
by John Grisham
read by Richard Thomas


My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fiction

When thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone begins to be harassed by an unknown person, he becomes a suspect in a crime himself.

The first thing I want to say is that, by this point, Theo’s uncle Ike Boone should really not still be described the way he is—as a somewhat sad, pathetic divorcee ex-con that Theo just visits out of obligation. He’s been such a help to Theo in all three books so far—someone that Theo can come to when his parents are too busy (which seems to be always), instrumental in both of the previous books in different ways. I’ve really come to like him, though I don’t envy some of the decisions he had to make in this book, so it’s kind of jarring for the author to still treat him as less than.

That being said, this was probably my favorite book in the series so far, though I’ve liked them all quite a bit. Theo gets a chance to find out what “innocent until proven guilty” is really supposed to mean, and what happens when the general public convicts a suspect before the trial. It’s an interesting parallel to what’s going on with the murder suspect first introduced in the first book, who is involved in this book a little bit too. I actually kept expecting Grisham to bring that up, for one of the adults in Theo’s life to point this out to him, but either he was keeping it subtle or it wasn’t an intentional parallel.

Richard Thomas continues to do a great job with the narration. At this point, it’s still probably not super important to read the books in order, though I do think it would be helpful to have at least read the first book in the series, since there are connections back to it in this book. Overall, I’d say whether or not a teenager or pre-teen will be interested in this book will depend on what kind of fiction they like—if fast-paced action is important, this probably won’t suit them. If they’re interested in realistic fiction about crime and law and trials, this could be fascinating for them.

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Book Review: The Lightning Thief

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The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1
by Rick Riordan

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy adventure

Percy Jackson has always had issues, but then his algebra teacher attacks him and he accidentally kills her, and his dyslexia isn’t the biggest problem in his life anymore. It turns out that he is a half-blood, meaning the son of a Greek god, and now monsters are going to periodically try to kill him. And to top it all off, he’s accused of stealing Zeus’s master lightening bolt. What’s a half-blood to do?

This is one of those series that I’ve heard of for years, but was never really on my radar. But my now-15-year-old daughter read it and loved it and ended up convincing me to read it. It was a fun read! Percy is a pretty sympathetic young hero, with dyslexia and ADHD and a whole lot of catching up to do when he finds out about his parentage. Though he’s not completely ignorant, as he’s been learning about Greek mythology all his life. I also really liked Grover, and though Annabeth was sort of meh to me at first, she grew on me too. Of course there are bullies, both inside and outside of the “special” world, but it’s nice to see Percy able to fight back in some way. Some of the minor wins he had along the way in general made me cheer. 

The chapter titles are sometimes hilarious (ch 1: “I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher”), sometimes intriguing, and sometimes a little dull, but overall, getting to the end of a chapter and seeing what the next would would be added a little thrill to the reading. And right off the bat, the incident with the teacher drew me in and made me so excited to know more! I don’t have much more than a sketchy knowledge of Greek mythology, so I wasn’t able to figure anything out that wasn’t explained in the story. On the other hand, I did correctly guess how the main part of the prophecy Percy receives would play out. It didn’t bother me to figure it out in advance, though. It just made sense.

There were two main downsides for me, one being just the nature of Greek mythology that comes into play so heavily in this book. Apparently it’s common for them to sleep around and either impregnate women or, in the case of the female gods, get pregnant themselves, only to abandon the baby and his/her mother/father. All through the centuries. I mean…it’s just kind of skeevy to me. The other downside was the motivation for the bad guy and his minion(s). It’s a bit cliché. But I suppose it might be pretty apt given who the main bad guy is. Plus, this book is written for kids around 10-13, so it probably won’t be particularly cliché for them yet. And both of these together only meant a half-star detraction, because the book was overall a lot of fun and excitement with a hint of much more to come. I recommend this to pre-teens and young teens (and it would be a good one for more reluctant readers, I think, especially boys), but really anyone who enjoys younger audience fantasy and adventure would probably like it.

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Book Review: How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale

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How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale
How to Train Your Dragon #5
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When a legendary Viking hero long believed dead rescues Hiccup and the other young Vikings-in-training from certain death, Stoick asks the hero to be Hiccup’s bodyguard (well, I was listening to the audiobook, and I think it was actually called a “bardy-guard,” but I really don’t know for sure how it was spelled). But it turns out that Humongously Hotshot might not have had Hiccup’s best interests at heart.

We’re well past the point of this series reminding me at all of the movies anymore, which is good, because it’s a lot easier to evaluate the stories on their own. The last couple have been much more enjoyable, breaking at least enough from the formula of Hiccup being ridiculed by the other Vikings and sort of stumbling into a situation where he gets to save the day. This one goes back to the formula a little, enough to where it doesn’t make any sense that people keep ignoring Hiccup’s wisdom and acting as if he’s completely inept, even though he’s saved the day multiple times by now. Despite all that, this is another fun story with another good temporary character and another visit from an archvillain. Toothless adds to the story in his own way, both for ill and for good. And as always, David Tennant’s narration bumps the enjoyment level up a notch or two. This is a solid addition to the series, though if you’re interested, I’d recommend starting at the beginning. Though it took me a bit to get into the series, it’s still worth reading all of it.

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Book Review: Dawn and the Impossible Three

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Dawn and the Impossible Three
The Baby-Sitters Club #5
by Ann M. Martin

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

For complete transparency, I’ll say up front that I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen. And at the time, my name was the same as the founder of the BSC (with the first name spelled slightly different). Nostalgia will hugely affect my reviews for this series, and I have no plans to try to be objective.

Dawn was always my least-favorite of the main five kids in the club, and that might just be because her health-food, California ways are pretty foreign to me. But I also feel that she isn’t quite as developed as the original four, at least in this first book from her perspective. Maybe that will come with future books. The title of this book is a little misleading, since, though the three main kids in this story did tend to be impossible for the other babysitters, Dawn didn’t really struggle with them that much and she did most of the sitting for them. Their mom was really the impossible one, but even there, once Dawn talked to her directly about the way she was making Dawn’s job more difficult, things smoothed out. Overall, the story was a good one for the series.

Whether or not this book will translate well to kids and pre-teens now, I couldn’t say. I wish I had thought to start reading this series to/with my daughter when she was around 8-10, because I think she would have enjoyed it, and we could have discussed the good and the bad of the books.

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