Review: Can't argue with my children - they LOVED it!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 7, 2012
This review consists of 2 parts: 1. My daughter's review (she's 9) - she gives it 5 stars; and 2. My review (the Mom) - I give it 4 stars. Clearly, it's a 4.5 stars!  These are excerpts. For the full review, please visit us at our website.DAUGHTER SAYS:What I liked and disliked about it:I liked the story of the book. I really liked how there were different kinds of magical creatures like dwarfs, fairies, and elves and that they could do magical things. I liked that a few of the elves were not as nice as others so that it makes it more realistic. I still liked all of the elves though and I liked how they were all different. I liked how the trees could eat people and drop twigs on them and make them do mean things and make them sleepy because that was cool.I wish that there had been pictures because I wanted to see what everything looks like - even the elves, dwarfs, the sleigh, the trees, and other things. I also didn't like that the story doesn't really say how they rescued Devlari.My bottom line:I loved, loved this book and I'm asking my mom for the next book. I think boys and girls 6 and up will like this book.MOM SAYS:What I liked and disliked about it:This was a bit of a difficult one for me. The author dives into the story right away which is both a good thing and a bad thing. On the one hand, it caught the children's interest right away (I read the entire book to both my kids). The downside is that there wasn't quite enough back story to help us understand the purpose of the children's quest. I'm still not sure whether I fully understand how the stream of dreams works and how it relates to the human world.That being said, the series of adventures (e.g., the stone king, the encounter with the fairies, the trees at Petty Pond, etc.) the elf children take part in are quite fun, original, and interesting. The kids really enjoyed the adventures that the elves had along the way in their quest. We didn't know what would happen next. There was a lot of begging, "Just one more chapter, pleeeeeease!"Twelve elves! Holey moley, that was hard to keep track of! Well, at least it was for me. I had to actually write down their names, the relationships between them (e.g., some were twins, brother/sister, cousins, no relation), and their special "talents" (e.g., fireballs, thunder, lightning, rain, snow, making moss, etc.). Some characters were so minor, I'm wondering if they could have been eliminated. I assume the intent of the author was to cover all of the elements, as these were "Nature Elves". However, we did have a question around the elves. There were 12 elves - were those all of the elf children in the village? The elvsies were cute though!Ok, I have to say it...there were enough editing goofs (missing/extra commas, missing chapter breaks, spelling errors, etc.) that I have to actually comment on it. It was THAT distracting. There I said it.One more thing...the cover illustration is inadequate. Both the kids kept wanting to see the cover and they were, let's call it, "under-whelmed". I would have to agree. Especially because there are so many different elves, a great accompanying visual in this case would have gone a long way.My bottom line:The kids LOVED IT! For the record, my son gave it 5 stars. I, personally, felt it took a while to get into the story specifically because the author dove right into it. Clearly, I have a need for a logical explanation for things before I can move forward. Apparently, that wasn't very much of an issue for the kids. By the end though, I really, really enjoyed the story - there were so many adventures within the book. The kids ask me every day for the second book, Witch Sticker Ball. I am sure we will get it and read it. I recommend this book to independent readers (boys and girls) ages 8 and up. It took a REALLY long time to read it aloud.