Books Love Me – Reviews

I may be too old to read this kind of books but I do enjoy them so much! Until now, I’ve already read four books by Jean Ure and their protagonists are all approaching their teen years. Ah, who cares? These books make me laugh out loud so I don’t have a problem with how young the characters are.

In Hunky Dory, the narrator is Dorian Jones or Dory and he’s “having terrible trouble with girls”. According to him, girls in his form keep acting weird around him. For example, a girl named Amy Wilkerson sat next to him in Geography class and kept getting cosy leaning up to him while talking to her friend who was sitting on his other side. And another girl kept beaming at him in class.

What makes it even more interesting is that Dory’s younger sister’s friend, Linzi, has a crush on Dory. Dory’s younger sister, Annabel or Microdot (Dory’s nickname for her) regularly gives Dory personality quizzes to do so that she can write his profile to tell what kind of person he is. She also hints to him about why he keeps avoiding Linzi. Dory just goes along with these tests to humour his sister.

Dory cannot understand why other girls can’t be like the Herb, his good friend. Her real name is Rosemary but the Herb is her nickname. I don’t know how she got it anyway. Dory, the Herb and Dory’s other good friend, Aaron, spend their free time in Dory’s garden, digging a hole to look for artifacts. Dory is passionately fond of dinosaurs and hopes to become some sort of dinosaur archaeologist when he grows up.

When Dory finds out that his best friend, Aaron, is going out with a girl, he becomes even more confused. He had always thought that his friends were never into girls and that they think girls are quite silly. He is also puzzled when the Herb acts weird sometimes. Once when he suggested inviting another girl over to help dig the hole, the Herb went quite ballistic.

I like the illustrations that go with the story. They’ll appear after every few pages and it helps the reader to visualize what’s going on. A quick, funny and perfect read if you want to know what young kids are up to nowadays.

Buy Hunky Dory

“being the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread”

This is a story of a mousey hero who saves a princess’ life. This is the story of a mouse that was different from the others. This is the tale of Despereaux.

When Despereaux was born, he was the only baby who survived. The other babies whom his mom gave birth to did not live. That was why his mom, a French mouse, was also skeptical of his survival rate. He was such a tiny mouse with abnormally large ears.

I find Despereaux’s mom an utterly pessimistic female mouse whose favourite word is ‘disappointment’. Hence, she named the poor fella ‘Despereaux’, symbolizing the tragedy happening around them.

Despereaux grew to be a mouse who could not easily please his family. His brother tried to teach him the art of scurrying in the castle that they lived in. His sister attempted to show him how to nibble paper but he started reading the book instead. That was how he knew his first story of a knight in shining armour who rescues a damsel in distress.

Anyway, Despereaux discovered music and from there, he met the Princess Pea. He immediately fell in love with her. It sounds cute, doesn’t it, a tiny mouse falling in love with a human princess? Or what do you think? I thought it would be a case of unrequited love but one should never stop dreaming and hoping.

The second part of the book introduces us to a rat called Chiaroscuro. It’s an odd name but it’s a new word to learn. In my dictionary, it means ‘the treatment of light and dark parts in a painting, etc’.

All the same, just call the rat ‘Roscuro’. Roscuro is an unusual rat who’s obsessed with light. It is in rats’ nature that they should always be in the dark but not Roscuro. Because he wants to be bathed in light, he ventured into the castle’s banquet hall where the royal family was having a party. Something terrible then happened and it caused Roscuro to be vengeful.

Another important character in the book would be Miggery Sow who was sold when she was a child. Her father was poor and traded her for a hen, a red tablecloth and some cigarettes. Poor Mig was sold to a man who kept giving her many “a good clout to the ear”. As a result, she became almost deaf and one would need to shout to her in order to be heard.

All these characters will eventually meet somewhere in the book and I’m not going to tell you how. This book is easy to read and you can finish it in a day. You can also enjoy the beautiful black and white illustrations that accompany the story.

It’s a book meant for children but it’s definitely a book for everyone. I thought the rat rather evil and disturbing, so perhaps you might need to be there to comfort your child if he or she begins having nightmares of menacing rats!

Love, courage, treachery, regrets, dreams and hopes are the themes found in The Tale of Despereaux. Enjoy reading this 2004 Newbery Medal award winner!

Other reviews: Nymeth, Girl Detective

Buy The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread

This is the first book in the Famous Five series. This is where the 3 siblings, Julian, Dick and Anne meet their cousin, Georgina or George as she prefers to be called, for the first time. The siblings have been sent to stay at George’s house for the holidays.

George likes to be referred to as a boy and she does act like one. She can swim and run really fast. At first, she decided not to like her cousins and not entertain them at all. She’ll only act civil to them in order not to get a beating from her scientist father.

However, she grew to like her cousins a lot. The siblings are very caring and loyal to her and have defended her at times. They also kept George’s dog, Timmy, a secret from her parents. This is what you’ll find in Enid Blyton books. The children will somehow like one another, which is good and can cultivate positive feelings in younger readers.

Well, George’s family lives at Kirrin Bay, which is near to Kirrin Island. George claims that the island belongs to her since her mother doesn’t want it and gave it to George. While visiting the island, a wreck of a ship which has been underwater for a long time has been brought up by the waves of the sea. There’s supposed to be gold in it, so the children set out to explore it. They did not find any gold, unfortunately.

The most exciting part was where somebody who wanted to buy the island for a good sum of money that can help George’s family. They have been having financial problems as George’s scientist father isn’t making much. Therefore, they jumped at the opportunity of selling the island. This of course angers George who obviously loves her little island and the ruined castle on it.

I thought this book plain boring. Perhaps it’s because I’ve not read it as a child and that I’m only reading it now. The book is meant for children, after all. But if you did read it as a child, you can always read it again and relive your younger days!

Wouldn’t you like to own a pair of shoes that fit like it was made for you? Ah, how nice that would be! Coriander Hobie is one lucky kid. She receives a pair of silver shoes and they fit her perfectly. But then, there is another story altogether behind those pretty shoes.

In this book, Coriander tells her tale in seven parts. She also lights seven candles to represent each part and blows them off one by one as she finishes one part after another. Now this candle-blowing thing is really intriguing but I don’t understand what it means.

First, Coriander introduces herself (she was born in 1643) and her parents. Where they lived, how her parents met, how her mother could ‘cure’ the neighbours by recommending them to take some of her homemade remedies. Some people secretly called her mother a witch or a cunning woman but they still flock to her home to be treated.

Now one day, a package arrives for Coriander and what does she find in there? Why, it’s the pair of silver shoes that fit her so darn well. Unfortunately, her mother doesn’t allow her to wear them. Six-year-old Coriander who has fallen in love with the shoes just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to wear them. She knew that the shoes were made especially for her.

Unable to resist not being able to have those shoes, Coriander sneaks into her father’s room and discreetly wears them. She panics when she couldn’t take them off, as if they wouldn’t come off. Well, it was only temporary. The shoes acted normally after that and Coriander’s parents let her wear them freely.

After a while, something odd happened to Coriander’s mother. She died not much later and the family’s broken-hearted. To make matters worse, Coriander’s father is advised to take on a Puritan wife so that he can keep his properties. Mr. Hobie was supportive of the Royalist cause and the Royalists had lost the English Civil War.

Mr. Hobie’s new wife, Maud, is like the wife/step-mother from hell. She finds fault with almost everything and is set on making the house more Godly by removing and changing many things which she considers to be linked to witchcraft. She also brings a preacher, Arise Fell home and insists that he stay with them.

Arise Fell is definitely one person whom I would never like to meet! He’s an extremist, heartless, cunning, and just a really hated character in this book. I felt angry and sympathetic towards Coriander and the others who had to suffer from Arise Fell’s ‘hand of wrath’. He even forces Coriander to change her name to ‘Ann’ because Coriander is not a suitable name for a God-fearing person. Ridiculous!

You’ll enjoy reading I, Coriander as it’s magical and beautifully-written. The parts with Arise Fell were quite disturbing because he just seemed so cruel! He’s quite remarkable because he can influence people with what he preaches but things go too far when he takes matters into his own hands. For example, the part where he and Maud deliberately kill an old, defenseless woman while other people just stood by watching.

I should like to see this book turned into a movie. It would be quite fascinating to watch Coriander, Arise Fell, Tycho (Coriander’s love), and other characters on screen.

Other Reviews: Jenne, Jen Robinson, Casey

Margaret Murry or Meg as she’s called, is quite an awkward young girl who’s not popular in school. She wears glasses and has braces, the typical description for girls who are unpopular. Nobody understands her in school, not even her teachers. She also doesn’t do well in lessons but in reality, she’s extremely brilliant at Math! It’s because she finds the teaching methods in school too different from what her father used to teach her.

Her father has been missing for quite a long time. People gossiped that he’s probably run away with another woman. He used to write to the family but stopped after a while. Meg’s mother still continues to write letters to him but they go unanswered and this has caused more unkind stories to be spread about the Murry family.

Meg has 3 younger brothers, 10-year-old Sandy and Dennys are twins while five-year-old Charles Wallace is the youngest. Meg is closest to Charles Wallace and usually turns to him for comfort after having a bad day. He also seems to know what she’s thinking, making Meg feel that he can actually read her mind. Besides Meg, Charles Wallace also always knows what their mother is thinking and feeling.

One day, Charles gets Meg to go with him to a supposedly haunted house to meet three strange women with strange names: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. They reveal that they are there to help Meg and Charles find their father who is in grave danger. Another boy, Calvin joins them too. He is considered to be of the same kind as Charles Wallace so he’s accepted by the three women to take part in their journey.

After that, they travel to another planet that’s very, very, very far away from Earth and they discover something sinister called IT. IT has captured their father and they have to save him. IT is evil. IT wants everybody to act like robots and unable to think for themselves. IT is in favour of uniformity. IT is also just a brain. I have no idea why IT was represented in the form of a brain though. The only way to handle IT is to try to resist what IT wants them to do.

One of my favourite parts in this book is Meg’s and Charles’ encounter with Calvin where Charles interrogated Calvin and Calvin being surprised that Charles wasn’t as dumb as everyone else thought he was. It shows that you can’t truly judge a person unless you got to know them! Actually I find Charles Wallace an absolutely interesting character. Such bombastic words and ideas from a mere five-year-old!

I decided to read A Wrinkle in Time because a lot of other people have already read and loved it. It’s also a banned book so I wanted to find out what could contribute to it being such a book. This story reminds me of something out of a Diana Wynne Jones book. I can’t say that I really liked this book. It wasn’t thoroughly enthralling but still something that we need to read. There are some scientific terms in it and they are explained in simple ways so even science-phobic readers can easily understand how science plays a part in the story.

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: Nymeth, Natasha, Book Dads, Trin, Penny

Do I even need to review this book??? I mean, it’s an Enid Blyton book, for goodness’ sake! Well, I’ll write about it anyway.

This is the fifth book in the Barney mystery series. Barney, Diana, Roger, Snubby, and Snubby’s dog, Loony, appear in all the Barney books. Diana and Roger are sister and brother while Snubby’s their cousin. He has no parents so he’s always sent to live with relatives during his school holidays but he enjoys spending his holidays with Diana and Roger. Barney is their friend. He has a pet monkey called Miranda. Pretty name, huh?

By the way, it’s the winter holidays for the kids. Barney has finally found his father after an endless search for him and he’s spent Christmas time with his newfound family. After Christmas, Barney invites Roger, Diana, and Snubby to stay at a house owned by his grandmother by a lake and surrounded by hills. Of course, Roger and Diana’s parents agreed to let them have fun by themselves. A Mrs. Tickle will be cooking their meals, washing their stuff, and just basically looking after them.

So at the house, the children spent their time skating and tobogganing down the snowy hills and having the time of their lives. Meanwhile, at night, they hear mysterious knocking sounds like ‘rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat’. Haha! Can you imagine such sounds? To me, it sounds odd but there you go.

As usual, the children being their inquisitive selves and with a huge sense of adventure, they decide to investigate the sounds. They even found a large glove on the ground outside and Snubby thought he saw somebody standing outside looking at the house. Therefore, they found reason to suspect that something was wrong.

I’ve now read 4 of the books in the Barney mystery series. The other three are The Rockingdown Mystery, The Rilloby Fair Mystery, and The Ring O’ Bells Mystery. Being an Enid Blyton fan and one who has grown up reading her books, I find them enjoyable and a great way to ‘relive’ my childhood.