Tag Archives: Children’s books

The Secret Prophecy by Herbie Brennan

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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I read this last year, but I have been thinking about it lately, so I thought I would share. Edward Michael Groverton, or Em, as he is known is devastated when his father suddenly dies. At the funeral he sees a man with a gun. Things begin to really get strange when their house is broken into and only his father’s study is ransacked. His mother encourages him to go to France with a friend of his father and his daughter, Charlotte. What he discovered about his father and Nostradamus leads the three of them on a dangerous journey through London and eventually to Arizona.  This fascinating tale, a mixture of fantasy, science, and politics will keep the reader engaged right to the end. The end itself seems a little contrived, and there is no doubt that this is the first of a series. Still, I recommend it for middle school readers. Watch for the second book!

 

The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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Take everything you have ever thought you knew about fairy tales and their prince and princesses and chuck it out the window.  This sequel to The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom gives all the fairy tale prince and princesses different personalities and abilities.  The princes have to band together to fight an evil power that wants to run the world.  The princesses have to help them, because, in spite of the idea that men are the best in battle, it runs out that they really can’t do anything without the women.

I found the story irritatingly inane – just the thing to appeal to elementary boys. I did get a good laugh out of the titles of the chapters: A Hero Makes It Up as He Goes Along, A Hero Has No Sense of Direction, and A Hero Knows How to Count, to name a few.

The person who wants to rule the world is a sloppy, immature, obnoxious eleven-year-old boy named Deeb Rauber. This unlikely villain is a ruler of a group of bandits and miscreants, who for some reason, give Deeb everything he wants. Evidentally Deeb had appeared in the first book, but I figured out who he was very quickly.

Deeb has an object, a piece of orange jade, that can give its holder incredible power, but he is not even aware that he has it.  The princes and princesses , of course, know what it can do  – so they set out to get it away from Deeb.  Of course, they sort of win and sort of lose, thus setting the stage for yet another book in the series.

I think it might have been a good idea to have the author edit the pictures.  For example, there is a sword fight in which Ella (that’s Cinderella for most readers) slides across a polished marble floor on her knees.  Then she gets up and says, “Thank the pants.” However, the picture opposite the scene is very clearly of a girl in a skirt.  In the same scene, she jumps up and grabs a chandelier, but the picture shows a hanging tapestry – not a chandelier.

If you have the first book, and it is circulating, I would suggest that you buy this one.  If this would be your first book in the series, you need to get ready to buy the first one also.

 

The Shadowhand Covenant

20 Friday Dec 2013

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??????????     If you have The Vengekeep Prophecies by Brian Farrey, you most definitely will want to add this to your fantasy collection. This is the second book of the series, but it could be read as a stand-alone.  In this tale, Jaxter Grimjinx, of the infamous Grimjinx family of thieves, must find out why a notorious group of thieves, known as Shadowhands are disappearing.  He also wants to know why the High Laird has begun imprisoning a peaceful group of people known as the Sarosans. Of course, nothing is ever easy, not what it seems to be in Vengekeep.

In the course of his adventure he makes new friends and allies – one of them was a former enemy of his.  At the end of the book, although things are somewhat resolved, the reader will know that more of the story is yet to come. This is a delightful, suspense-filled fantasy for the 10 -12 year old reader.

Any story about children who manage to best adults with their skills or powers is always fascinating to younger readers.  One must suspend concrete knowledge in order the get into the story.  For instance, Jaxter carries with him a few pouches of herbs.  He never runs out of them, although he is constantly using them; and, he always seems to have just what he needs in those pouches.  Once, they are taken away from him, but the stupid adults who took the pouches leave them where he can get his hands on them again. Still, it is a good story, and I feel I can recommend it for upper elementary and possibly the middle-school student.