Review: Good book for kids
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 2, 2011
I often wish Amazon allowed to use half-stars in the ratings - if I could, I'd have given the book three and half stars instead of three. As it is, I deliberated between three and four, but ultimately it just wasn't quite a four star read for me.That said, I suspect that being a 30-something adult, I'm not in the target group for it; had I read the book as a ten-year-old, I'd probably have loved it. It's got a nice mix of realism and fantasy adventure, the main characters are not completely bland (and considering the length of this fairly short book, it would have been difficult to flesh them out more; I'd imagine that as this is the first book in what looks to be a planned series, the characters will have a chance to grow), there's some action as well as some more introspective moments, and the book ends at an exciting spot - which some readers will probably love and others, who are not as keen on cliffhangers, won't.Also, I should say that the book was refreshingly well formatted for the Kindle - too often Kindle books, even from major publishers, come without such important little details such as chapter marks. I spotted a handful of typos and some missing quotes here and there, and a few instances of awkward phrasing, but it didn't distract me from reading.My only complaint, and part of the reason why it didn't make four stars in the rating, has to do with a personal pet peeve: head-hopping. I admit that for all I know, the author intended it to be written in third person omniscient POV, which can be tricky to pull off well (and there isn't any fast rule that says POV switches should be kept strictly to scene or chapter changes, after all). That said, I've seen worse; at least the point of view changes, from what I can remember, didn't take place mid-paragraph.