Children's Space Books Books

OK,here's the deal;after the events in book 5 Yago finds himself hooked up to Mother,the supercomputer that runs the ship the Remnants have tried to inhabit.Mother reads Yago's memories and creates a computer-generated Washington D.C.Yago then finds himself leading a battalion of computer-generated soldiers against a battalion of Blue Meanies.My favorite scene is where a Blue Meanie "kills" Yago.Fortunately it turns out to be a projection of Yago,made to simulate his death.Altogether Yago played a big part in this chapter of the Remnants' saga.

i think that this book really picks up the pace in the series. sometimes though, i felt that the author tried to rush things and didn't explain them well. overall though, this book really explain's yago and is one of the better remnant's books. i though think that the first is the best.

The Remnants are a group of survivors that escaped from the asteroid that wiped out earth and have been floating in space for 500 years in hibernation. Then they landed on a ship and are now trapped on that ship controlled by a super computer called Mother. They are now going to challenge Mother. The other people that have tried to fight and take over have failed and have now gone crazy. There only hope now is a boy named Billy that has some how been able to create a bond with mother. They also learn through him that Mother is lonely and about the Shipwrights. They have also learned that Mother can create new environments and even new worlds. She can even create a computer-generated earth. But will they survive long enough for Billy to take over?
I thought that this is a great book. This is one of the best-written books that I have ever read. I would suggest reading the others and this one if youýre a Sci-fi fan.

I, personally, thought the 1st book in this series was good, but it seemed that after that, Applegate didn't know where to go with it, but had to write something, and this is the result. I have only read books 1-6, but this is my opinion. I'll stick with this series and see if a general plot ever developes. Right now, I don't reccomend these books.

The Remnants continue their struggle with a world created by Mother, the powerful computer who seems to have human qualities. The few people who have faced Mother have failed miserably, but the Remnants have one hope, Billy, the kid who stayed awake all 500 years of their journey. He is the only one who has been able to creat a bond with her. From Mother, through Billy, the Remnants learn much about the lonely negelected computer, including the fact that she was made by the powerful Shipwrights. Soon the Remnants figure out that Mother has the ability to recreate Earth too but the Remnants know she will ask something in return. Yago, against many people's wishes, makes a deal with Mother to let her delve into his mind and recreate Earth. In return Yago agrees to destroy the Children for Mother, otherwise know as the "Blue Meanies" A computer generated battle takes place as the projections of Civil War Soliders take on the Blue Meanies. Will the Remnants survive the battle they can't even control?

This wasn't one of the best Remnants books and thing definitely got weirder. Some things I felt were a little out of control weird. This book did have some pretty impressive revelations as we get to know the baby's true identity. We also meet 2 new Remnants who have been separated from the rest of the Remnants and held captive by the Children.

I first read this book when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I found it to be a beautiful and mysterious book with just enough strangeness to make me want to read it again and again. Well when I got older I found a used copy and decided I didn't want to be without it because it impacted me like few books had, and as a kid I read alot! It will give you an imagination if you don't have one, and if you do have one, it'll fire it up all the more. I love it. I still pull it out and read it on occassion, usually in one sitting. The 'person' who gave it a one star rating is probably used to Ren & Stimpy...

I read this book over and over again starting at age 10 when I first discovered it. There was something magical and intriguing about the story of a girl who comes across a ghost in a museum, and then learns about her past (so different from today) over the course of several meetings. There is a mysterious quality to the book, and always the feeling that something this magical might happen to any child at the right time in the right place. This is one of the stories I most strongly remember falling in love with as a child-- some 30 years later, it still sticks with me.

This book is one I return to every year or two, and I'm always enchanted by Eleanor Cameron's artistic, finely-tuned prose. The story is well thought out and told with sensitivity and depth. It is definitely one of the most treasured books in my collection.

WARNING: This book looks good. It has an interesting plot. Do not be fooled by its 4.5 star rating on Amazon.com. Side effects may include nausea, boredom, and downright depression for wasting time.

This book is very slow, boring and has terrible writing! I mean, there's this one part that is something like: "The deserted place was empty." COME ON!!!
Do not read this book!

My son brought this book home from the school library and while he enjoyed it, I was completely hooked. As I kid I loved books that gave me places to wander around and get lost in--The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler comes to mind. This museum is much smaller, but gives readers a glimpse into what running a museum is like, and the magical atmosphere that can be created amid all the bits and pieces of the past. In this case, the "magic" is more than atmospheric, and the characters are an eclectic mix. After the book went back to the library, I ordered a copy for myself.

I believe that most of the criticisms of this book are accurate. I am rating it reasonably well because I came away with some insights that I thought were worthy of investing time in the book and in the book's author, James P. Hogan. It is true that the human characters are somewhat flat, including Taya the central character, while the machine characters are much better drawn. I suspect this was a conscious decision by Hogan because this book is really about the machines more so than the humans. Still, this does not absolve Hogan of a plot that seems incomplete; of a fantastic story that just begs to be fleshed out in much greater detail. However, "Star Child" was developed from a short story published more than a quarter century ago, and that original story, "Silver Shoes for a Princess" (also the first chapter in this book), stands alone as well-written and thought provoking. I found (after some frustration with the pace and exposition of the book) that I began to enjoy the book more if I considered it to be a collection of short stories rather than a fully developed novel. And the ending scenes, although brief, were quite poignant.

I thought that Hogan's exploration of mind was fascinating, with artificial intelligences probing the meaning of their existence. Artificial intelligence is usually portrayed as an omnipotent and often-threatening force prone to total logic, overseeing humanity (or competing with it) like a digital god, evolving through a process of digital compilation and development that spontaneously springs into self awareness with full knowledge of its pre-awareness history. But Hogan's machine minds have no idea where they came from and find themselves asking the very same questions human minds ask: Where did I come from? Why am I here? What happens when I die? The circular existence of the human minds and machine minds in Hogan's plot demonstrates that mind transcends the matrix that houses it, rendering artificial intelligence not as a vaguely disturbing threat in a possible future, but rather, perhaps having more in common with the human mind than is generally considered.

I like James Hogan's work, but I don't think this book is one of his better efforts.

The story has a good initial premise, providing the baseline of intelligent machines on a starship creating Taya from old (DNA) codes. Taya is a nine year old girl at the beginning of the story. I think it left out some obligatory developmental filler between the first section of the story when Taya is in self-discovery, and the next sub-story of planetfall with her younger cohorts. The way the mean and nasty king would revert to sugar and spice was too much of a reach for me.

Another large gap in development to the next section which tied up the loose ends of the starship origins and meaning of life (for Taya). Throwing in a little mystical mumbo jumbo at the end along with a post-life meta-space just didn't flow well for me.

This book is a very imaginative piece of work. It gives a detailed account of how computers can function. This very well may be the way of the future. The computers evolved on their own, as have other robot models today, but they begun evolution from human set parameters. This is a very realistic way of this process happening. So, not only is the book creative with a great story line, it is a distinct possibility.

One of the best books ever written!

When Taya was eight, she discovered that she wasn't like the machines around her. Her robot friend, Kort, no matter how kind, couldn't tell the difference between a pretty shape and a not pretty shape. Kort then showed her the bio-bodies that had been engineered after her. When they are brought to life, they call her "queen".

Ten years later, the robots and their charges land on Azure, a planet similar to our earth. Here, they meet with violence and destruction, foreign behaviors to them. For the most part, the story is about the "Star Children" and their influence on the planet.

During the first third of this book I was afraid it was going to end with ".. and they called their new planet EARTH!" Fortunately Hogan is much better than that.

I found problems with the necessary suspension of disbelief in a couple of areas which seemed to be unnecessary to the story. It it an intriging idea to have a self-aware machine build a self-aware bio-form (the star-child) out of component molecules based on nothing more than an imperfectly understood DNA record. The part that doesn't sit so well is the resulting person -- with utterly no connection to any human society -- could nonetheless end up with so much culturally in common with people living on a planet.

Hogan also skates over the massive problems that would accrue if you had a person raised in a sterile environment (no bacteria or viruses at all) and plonk them down into a fully functioning Earthlike ecology, even eating the local food. I'm no expert but I think it would be unlikely that such subjects would survive. At least not easily.

And if you would be interested in the star-child's first experiences with sex, you will be disappointed.

The part of the story about the machines were more believable, actually. I like the part where they developed multiple personalities to serve different functions: the Scientist, the Skeptic, the Mystic and so on.

Worth reading, but as I said it has shortcomings.

Like many people here, I got this book from a book sale in 6th grade. I find interesting that while most Sleator books feature main characters age 16 or older, the books themselves seem to be aimed at younger readers. Anyway, I loved this book then, and I love it now that I have just re-read it 15 years later. The ending was exciting, it resolved every conflict, and it came as a surprise. All the classical elements of a good fiction story.

However, I have to agree with the person who mentioned the plot problems. They're definitely there, and I don't mean just scientific inaccuracies ... you can get away with that in science fiction, of course ... nor do I mean stupid mistakes made by the main character, although he certainly does make a lot of them ... I mean that elements of the science on which the plot is built are suddenly changed later on in the book, probably because a self-consistent system of time travel would lead to a lame and predictable ending, which of course is not what the author wants.

So I'm going to go ahead and give this book only three stars, which is very low by my standards since I only tend to review books that I consider well worth of my money.

"Strange Attractors" was the best book I have ever read. It is set for a younger group of readers, but adults will enjoy this book as well. I highly reccomend this book to anyone who simply enjoys reading. The first time I read it was in seventh grade. I have read it at least five complete times by now. This is a great book to do a school project on. The only main conflict is locating the book at a bookstore near you.

-Happy Reading

OK so let me summarize. It's about a boy. These two people "plant" something on him. In a nutshell (I guess) there are another two people like the first, they are bad. The boy has to decide which two to trust.... he chooses. I can't tell much or it gives it away, the way I summarize it anyway. Well I think it isn't easy to get interested in, it's kinda boring actually...

Recommendation - I would recommend this book to someone who likes science fiction. One reason I would recommend this book is that it was exciting and the characters were good. " 'We must never use the phaser again', 'Sure, sure,' I said, 'there is no pointing arguing with you about it' ". This book was good because Max finds a time traveler. "This thing is a time machine". I would really recommend this book to anyone who would like a book on time travel.

I am normally a big fan of Willaim Sleator, but this book is poorly written, with a lot of errors in the plot.

Getting to the moon required a lot of knowledge. The astronauts, especially Neil Armstrong, often distance themselves from the heroism of the Apollo 11 project.

Apollo took hundreds of thousands of people and lots of teamwork to develop. It is therefore a treat to see Thimmesh's vivdly illustrated and inspiring book.

-Tahir Rahman, author of We Came in Peace for all Mankind: the untold story of the Apollo 11 silicon disc

I will use this book in my middle school curriculum when I teach about space. When I showed it to students, they pretty much just looked at the pictures. After they watched "Apollo 13" it made a lot more sense to them. Then they wanted to understand more about the technology available at the time. This book makes a great companion piece to "The Right Stuff" and "The Dish" as well. If you are trying to get a historical perspective on that time period and didn't live through it as some of us did, please do yourself a favor and read it. The current textbooks cannot portray the taste of adventure we felt each time the astronauts voyaged out into dangerous places,as students back home gathered around black and white TV's brought into the classrooms to watch splashdowns. Knowing that the support structures have to be so huge may help people both understand why it costs so much to run a space program as well as perhaps pursue careers in the aerospace industry that are not just in the small astronaut corps.

Definitely a juvenile-oriented work, but nonetheless very interesting and full of information not generally provided in accounts of the first manned moon landing.

i thought this book was great. i added it to my classroom library and the students love it too.

Though I typically lean towards fantasy and adventure-themed novels, this was one of the few science fiction books I was able to appreciate, not only for its interesting word choice, but also for its unexpected suspense. The author of this book really paints an image in your mind. The beginning, for me, was something I had to somewhat struggle through, but once I got past it, I was able to dive into the past, understanding the fears of the unknown that the people of that time must have faced. What was it like to go to the moon, to step onto that land that no man can describe? And 400,000...that's no small number, just as it was no small feat to land Apollo 11 on the moon.

~From the reader

This magicul book clung to me at my house I could not let go of it. When I wrote about it in school I thought about the magiul trips they took.

That magicul book seld my fingers on the cover! When I opened the adventures book I felt excited. In scool when I had to write about the book I rememberd the magicul trips they took.

I do not recommend this book!!! I took so long to finish it. Do not read it. You will fall asleep in minutes!!!!!!!

I bought this book after see the movie as a child still great loved every minute of it.

Bed - Knob and broomstick
By: Norton, Mary
Reviewed By: S. Chang
Period: P.5

Three children, Carey, Charles, and Paul are brothers and sisters that were sent to Bedfordshire to stay with their aunt. Very near their aunt's house, an old lady named Miss Price lives in a small house. On an early morning, the three children find Miss Price in pain with a broomstick next to her. Soon they find out that she is a witch and fell while practicing to ride on a broomstick. To prevent the children from revealing her secret, she put a spell on Paul's bed-knob. The spell was to take the children whenever they want if they twist the knob and wish. They take it home and twist the bed-knob and wish. But they don't end up getting quite what they want, only trouble, especially when they meet Emelius Jones.
This book, Bed ?Knob and Broomstick is included in one of my favorite books. I liked it because of many reasons, but most of all it's because it was unpredictable and adventurous. In most books, everything goes well most of the time and all the books seem to have almost the same story. But in this book, opposite from many other books that I have mentioned, almost everything goes wrong and is unpredictable. For example, who knew Paul was going to say, "It's hers. It's what she fell off. It's what she rides on.?Who knew they were going to meet Emelius Jones and get into all that adventure?
I say that this book is full of adventure. Especially when a dummy soars though the sky and save Emelius. I remember how they described that situation. In this book, some boys screamed, "A witch on a broomstick!?in the past of Bedfordshire. I always like it when they make the bed go somewhere. I also liked it when they went to the island of Ueepe. I liked that part because it made me think Carey and Charles wouldn't make it and Miss Price and Paul had already left. I felt as if I was with the 3 children and Miss Price.
Although this book comes in as one of my favorite books, it isn't a perfect book. I think every book has its pros and cons. What I didn't like about this book was when Emelius is over at Miss Price's house. I think I didn't really enjoy that part because of the wordings. How it was worded was very weird and it confused me. After I think about it, I don't remember much from that part. Nothing was made very clear to me. In my opinion, this book is a very good book except for this part in the book that I have mentioned.

I never received the book for my son. I cannot review this product as it was never received!!!

Because they go to the moon (really it's their purple couch). It tells you how to earn money to buy a telescope to look at the moon. I liked it when Harry came dressed in a space suit. Horrible Harry books are awesome!!!!!!! By Mitchell 8

I first started reading Suzy Kline books when she became my son's second grade teacher. She is a gem and she writes books about things that happen to her characters that kids can relate to. I am such a fan that I bought everything she and her husband Rufus have written. All of her characters are good kids that get into little messy situations, and by the end of the story they have discovered how to work out their problems. Great life lessons for all our kids. We love you Suzy!

Harry, the main character, is in the third grade. His class is studying about the moon. Harry finds a used telescope that is for sale and his class decides to raise the money to buy the telescope. Once they raise enough money they are going to have a moonwatch. Harry has a surprise for everyone. Harry helps his classmates feel like they have really been to the moon by using his imagination.

This book could be used in the classroom during a science class or with a math class. The book also teaches social skills. The class learns to work together to accomplish a common goal.

This book was extremely entertaining. I was able to get my 8 year-old son to read it and it is hard to get him to read anything. Harry shows that by using you imagination you can do anything you put your mind to.

While there is much in this book that is creative and imaginative, all that for me was undermined by the fact that, when I closed the book, I had concluded that its author, though a woman herself, must be a misogynist. There are two female characters whose narrative significance is comparable to that of the narrator himself, Doug, and Harry, the protagonist. One is the teacher, who is presented very positively, but who is not a character the primary school readers of this book will specifically identify with. The other is Doug and Harry's classmate Mary, and by the time I finished the book, I despised her. She is assertive, but her assertiveness is distorted and made ugly, so that when she gets her come-uppance, as she does several times (e.g. when her overpriced cookies at the bake sale don't sell), the reader can't help feeling glad. Harry is nicer and more clever, and gets the better of her every time. Her one good moment in the book is when she conceives the idea of the bake sale, and of calling it a moon sale, and the teacher praises her. Other than that she is obnoxious and arrogant. Primary school readers are not likely to notice these things consciously, but the subliminal message is there: boys are smarter and more fun, girls should sit down and shut up, or leave it at coming up with clever ideas for bake sales, or at least just go along with the boys, as Song Lee does. Compare this to the Jigsaw Jones series, where Jigsaw Jones's detective partner Mila "demands equal pay for equal work," and that is "worth every penny" to Jigsaw (Jigsaw Jones and the Case of the Missing Hamster, by James Preller--note that this author is a man, and he does a better job with gender equity). I would not foist Horrible Harry Goes to the Moon on either girls (who are demeaned by it) OR boys, who don't need its message any more than the girls do.

The Last Universe is a book about two siblings, Gary and Susan. Gary has an illness that has put him in a wheelchair and is making Gary weaker by the day. Gary loves being in the huge mysterious garden behind his house. Even though Susan is afraid of her family's garden, she must push Gary on its paths every day. The garden was made by Susan and Gary's great-great grandparents. In the couple acre garden, there is a maze that can only be seen from the upper floor bathroom window created by Susan's Great-Uncle Arthur. Great-Uncle Arthur also won the Lebon Prize for quantum physics. While Gary is more and more sick, mysterious flowers are sprouting and growing at abnormally fast rates. What makes the flowers even more mysterious is the fact that they grow in are found growing in Cambodia, halfway across the world. When the children tell their dad about this, he tries to avoid the topic. Did something bad happen in the garden?
William Sleator used a style of writing that had me hooked from the beginning of the book until the end of the book. He also was very descriptive and made characters with very credible actions. There was a great plot wasn't confusing. The part that was confusing to me was the quantum physics used in this book. Quantum was hard topic for me to understand.
I enjoyed this book because the plot had me hooked. I also liked the topic he chose for his book. Although this is an excellent book, the quantum is very confusing. I would recommend this book to people who like science fiction, people who can understand difficult concepts, and like a plot that moves at a fast pace.

The main character is in a wheelchair because he is sick and can't walk any more. He is depressed because he can't go anywhere without his sister. Susan takes her brother to the garden every day so he can get some fresh air. After they start going to the pond weird things start to happen. The paths started to move and flowers started to grow there that where impossible to grow there.
I liked the characters and plot of this book because they are always changing. The characters are friendly and cheerful and the plot is always changing like the price of gas. It is a really good book. You should go and read it.

Imaginative, thought-provoking, & suspenseful sci-fi is the hallmark of all Sleator's works, and this one does not disappoint. The concepts of quantum physics which drive the story are intriguing and Sleator has done a good job of explaining them to his audience. The action is slow at the beginning, but the story picks up pace as Susan & Gary begin to visit the maze and to comprehend its effects. The ending was completely unexpected, as is typical of Sleator.

As for negatives, the characters of both Gary & Susan are annoying, especially Susan for her fearful personality. In fact, I didn't feel that I would like ANY of the characters in real life. Also, the plot didn't contain as many characteristic Sleator twists as the other books of his that I've read.

In my opinion, "The Boxes," "Singularity," "Rewind," "Among the Dolls," and "The Green Futures of Tycho" were all much, much better, but, as a previous reviewer pointed out, even a "weak" (all things being relative) effort by Sleator is worth reading.

By the way -- my 5th-grader loved it.

It is often accurately said that a bad ending will hurt even a good story. In this case it is a mediocre story and the ending did nothing but hurt it. This one has little to recommend it and you'd be better off passing it up.

William Sleator's evident fascination with quantum physics and different universes is on display again in this novel, which (like Strange Attractors before it) deals with bifurcations in the timeline. In "Strange Attractors" the characters actually used a time machine to visit these alternate timelines. This time around, all it takes is one sick boy and a maze.

There are several problems with this book. One is its attempt to be "modern". Sleator evidently wants to reach today's youth by incorporating their technology into his new books. This one begins with his main character instant messaging her friend, and he writes their conversation out exactly as he evidently imagines a teen would write an instant message. Maybe it's unfair to peg him for this one, but to me the entire effort seemed strained. He abbreviated some things but not others, and it didn't sound like a teenager, it sounded like an adult trying to sound like a teenager. It was also frustratingly vague at times. He never gave any specifics about what illness the sick boy actually has, though it would have taken only a hour's worth of internet research to find a disease or syndrome of some kind that had the symptoms he needed for his plot.

I was very disappointed by the ending. There are so many promising leads -- the fascinating probability clouds, the ever-changing vases, the hints at the other worlds -- that I could scarcely imagine all the places he could take the book in the end. But instead of something really fantastic, the ending is very ho-hum, and the "twist" at the end isn't handled well enough to really be a shocker. It's also not particularly scientific, or logical. And it's frustrating that so much is left unexplained in the book -- his explanation of illness "triggering" the garden's quantum effects, for example, or even giving some hints as to how the maze was built in the first place. Did the garden inherently possess quantum properties, or were they brought there by some magic-like science? Even little things in this book failed to impress. Each chapter has a little maze at the heading, but the maze always stays the same. Since the maze in the garden changes, it would have been interesting to see that one change too, kind of like the chapter-heading pictures in one of Michael Crichton's books. He also has an "Afterward" in the book, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why it's even there, since all it does is repeat what his characters have already said about quantum physics in the book. It's great that he wanted to have a solid lesson on the concept for his readers, but I'm sure his readers were smart enough to understand it without a repetitive and frankly condescending "explanation" at the end.

Still, there's a lot of great imagery here, especially with the descriptions Sleator gives of the garden. It's almost as if he's really been to such a place. :-) And he does manage to create an atmosphere of creepy tension, as always. I'm just disappointed that the pay-off wasn't better. Overall, it's definitely not one of his best books. Check out "Strange Attractors" The Boy Who Reversed Himself and The Boxes for more dazzling examples of how this amazing writer can handle the concepts of time travel and alternate universes. It may not sound like it from this review, but he's one of my favorite writers of all time, and since I know what he's capable of, I'm inclined to be harder on him when he doesn't meet his potential. I know he still has great stories to tell, so I look forward to reading those.

Magic By the Book
By Nina Bernstein
Illustrated by Bosis Kulikov

This will be a great book to add to my collection of magical adventures.
Ann, Emily and Will have a whole pile of books to read during the summer vacation.

There is one book that is left in the bottom of the basket. When they discover the book, and begin to read, it says that Ann and Emily had one book in the bottom of the basket that they just now discovered.

Everything they do is written into the pages of the book.
The children go on magical adventures into stories that they have read and loved. Ann and Emily go into the pages of Robin Hood. When they come back, they cannot turn the pages of the book and they are upset, wishing to go on another adventure.

The next adventure, it turns out, will be for their younger brother, Will alone.

All three children share an adventure into the book, War and Peace. Ann began reading the book, which was a little too grown-up for her. She didn't read the ending, so they aren't sure how their adventure will turn out.

If you are a fan of Edward Eager, you will enjoy this fun story. If you enjoy reading books about children going on magical adventures this book is for you.

Jill Ammon Vanderwood
Author of magical adventures
Through the Rug
Through The Rug: Follow That Dog (Through the Rug)

I've never been so glad to put a book down as when I finished this one. That is not a compliment.

"Magic by the Book" is very poorly put-together, and seems to be more of what a starry-eyed adult wishes to read about in a children's adventure, than an actual adventure intended for children.

The characters are very unconvincing. We are told that the three siblings, ages 11, 9 and 6, all love to read. Great! What do they like to read? "War and Peace", and other classics that are not only not intended for children, but are far above their reading and comprehension level, and most likely out of their areas of interest. They also seem to have encyclopedic knowledge of poems and ballads.

But I could handle that, I suppose, if not for their sheer precociousness. Their dialog shows an intelligence that is very unrealistic for children. The kids are at their best when they intelligently recognize things that children might be able to figure out on their own, such as when they wonder if their being trapped in a book could result in their actions changing the story's outcome. They're at their worst, however, when they understand adult concepts, use their large knowledge of books and ballads and poems to drop references, and act like little adults. In particular, when discussing strategy to carry out rescue operations, any ability to relate to these characters as children completely disappears. Especially when six-year-old Jack, who is described as being unable to read, does it. Nothing could kill suspension of disbelief quicker than having a not-yet-literate six-year-old suddenly start understadning situations that older kids might not readily recognize.

The "little adults" comparison isn't helped by the unappealing illustrations. The kids look like midgets! They have oddly shaped bodies and large heads with faces that do not look like children at all. The characters are so poorly drawn that one would have to wonder if it was intentional. Were the bad illustrations meant to evoke some sort of bizarre "old-fashioned" feel to the book? I sure hope not, since even old books have better illustrations than this.

The action is frequently stopped by excessive narrative and flashbacks. Constant flashbacks to earlier events in the kids' childhood are triggered by things that happen, but tend to bring the story to a grinding halt. This is especially bad when the flashback is not relevant to what's currently happening in the story. It almost feels like padding, along with the amount of detail put into little things such as the rituals of little Gnomblins and the little quirks of Robin Hood's gang. While such details could be interesting and help flesh the characters out, they are expanded upon in such a way that the flow of the story suffers.

It's a shame that so much could be so wrong with this book. The idea is pretty sound: three siblings end up getting sucked into a book that transports them into different adventures, each with a problem they are required to solve. There were even plot elements that I really liked too, such as when a mysterious man from the book steals the book to use it for his own ends. Unfortunately, all the bad buries the good and turns the whole thing into a painful, nearly unreadable mess.

If you happen to enjoy this book, more power to you. Though I have to wonder... are kids, or adults, its intended audience? Horrific illustrations, bad characterization and dialog, literary namedropping ("let's see what famous book I can reference next!"), mild swearing (!), and a narrative that frequently slows down and stops for no good reason, all have me wondering if this book was really intended for kids, or for adults who have a love of books and want to be brought back to them in some twisted misshapen attempt at nostalgia.

Though this is a book for older young readers, we have been reading it to our 6 year old nightly. The language is vivid and rich and a pleasure to read aloud. We happened to see this book showcased at our local library and deffo plan to purchase! This is a wonderful book that shows the promise of the magic of reading and using one's imagination to create the world being read from the page. Splendid!

Cheers!
Andie

Nina Bernstein's Magic By The Book is more than just a tribute to books and a powerful fantasy: it will remind readers of a more modern version of the classic Edward Eager 'magic' books which so thrilled a generation. Can a book cast a spell and make its readers travel through time? A simple library book brings three kids to explore magic in the printed word.

It's hard not to appreciate a book whose author clearly intends it to be a literary homage to some all-time favorite young fantasy authors: E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, Mary Norton, etc. And whether the tribute is subtle in terms of theme or visuals or plot or more directly stated, as when one of the characters references a book by the above mentioned authors, it is always done without a sense of irony--there's a sincere sense of love there.
Unfortunately, Bernstein didn't channel enough of those authors in her writing, as Magic by the Book falls woefully short of its models. The title book that mysteriously appears one day in a basket of library books, sweeps three young children (Anne, Emily, and Will) into its pages and into adventure. In the first, Anne and Emily meet Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest and help to avoid a major disaster. In the second, Will shrinks down in size and acts as battle champion/questor for the good inhabitants of his backyard garden, threatened by a nasty bug and his army of insects. And finally all three get swept into an alternate War and Peace and they try to save the book itself from some sort of wolfman.
The three set pieces vary in quality but none is particularly strong. The Robin Hood section feels a bit perfunctory and flat. Will's section is the most wildly inventive and by far the most engaging, but it lags somewhat by its end. And the last section feels almost insubstantial, not quite all there, as if it were rushed in to beat a deadline.
Will is the most alive of the three children, Emily the least so, and Anne falls somewhere in the middle. The last section offers a glimpse of stronger characterization with regard to Anne but just enough to tease and then finally disappoint as its never really fully explored or resolved. The children's speech patterns are somewhat inconsistent, seeming to shift between age-appropriate and more adult. The family dynamics among the three are nicely handled and are probably one of the book's strong points, though again more could have been done with them. And there's a nice focus on the power of reading.
One kept pulling for this book based on its obvious inspirations, but in the end it never came off as a choice companion to those other books or as its own standalone. If anything, it performs its tribute in untended fashion, showing just how rare, just how special, is the literary magic of those authors like Nesbit, Norton, and Eager. And thus the recommendation to try them rather than Magic by the Book.

The story of two soulmates who first meet in prehistory (caveman times) and die fighting over a mysterious rock. The two continue to be reincarnated throughout history. In each life, they meet, feel a sudden and unexplainable connection, and then lose each other. It's like they keep getting "do-overs" until they get things right.

Fans of historical fiction will enjoy the brief glimpses into a variety of time periods--prehistory, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, colonial America during the Salem witch trials, France during WWII/Holocaust, Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, and modern day New York.

The story kept my interest for the most part, but I was disappointed with the ending. The resolution seemed to come too quickly and easily.

From the moment they first meet, this young man and woman have a powerful connection. But circumstance will not allow them to stay together; a fight for a green jewel ends both of their lives. However, their bond is so strong that it surpasses the boundary between life and death and they continue to be born into new bodies until they can finally be together.

Reincarnation is quite a unique story, and I have never quite read anything like it. Each story of these two lovers connects back to the previous ones in obvious ways, so it is easy to tell which character was reincarnated into which new character, although this was a little confusing when the girl became a guy. The easiest way for me to recognize who was who was with the details that carried over from setting to setting. For example, the main young woman always had a pet cat named Baby, a hurt ankle, and a great singing voice, and the main young man always had headaches and a skill in archery. I really enjoyed how all the characters were interconnected and also the various historical settings. A lot of research must have gone into this novel, and I am nearly positive that it is all accurate.

The idea behind Reincarnation is a philosophical question, and Suzanne Weyn attacks it head on. I really liked how she incorporated many major religions, according to their region, and their views on death and the afterlife. However, I found it kind of ironic how the two lovers were never reincarnated as people in India, which is where the two main religions believing in reincarnation, Buddhism and Hinduism, originated. But this can be forgiven since the characters read many books on Buddhism in the novel.

The ending of the story was bittersweet for me, because I did not feel that the story lived up to its full potential. Suzanne Weyn leaves a lot of the story up to interpretation, which is good for making the reader think about the concept of reincarnation, but it did not leave me with a sense that the young lovers would stay together in love for all of eternity. The one redeeming point was how the other two characters that are also reincarnated get together.

All in all, I was a little disappointed with Reincarnation, but it was a beautiful story nonetheless. I do recommend it, because it is a highly unique and thought-provoking read, and I hope that other readers will find it as sweet a love story as I did.

reposted from http://thebookmuncher.blogspot.com

I am blown away by this book. I don't think there's anything out there like it. The premise is intriguing and it works on so many levels. Sure, it's a romance but it's also a moving story about four people and how they evolve in their character through many lifetimes. It also encompasses issues of human dignity and takes you on a fascinating ride through history. It's a page-turner, too.I couldn't put it down. Go get it!

While this is not at the level of such Munsch classics as "The Paper Bag Princess" and "Love You Forever", it is certainly a worthy source of delightfully quirky entertainment. The plot was so inplausible, and yet taken with such nonchalance that I couldn't help but be delighted. Great little book to put you in a good mood.

Are people really destined for each other? Does love conquer all things? This book is all about love and its endless possibilities. It all starts in prehistory. Kye is a hunter who stumbles away from home during a battle and ends up near a cave in which May lives. From the result of the battle, Kye needs to find something that he can take back which will help him receive the status of leader in his group. When he came near the cave, he saw May standing near the ledge of the cliff they were on. She then started to sing and once she did, Kye was captivated by her voice. He was near mesmerized when a sudden gust of wind came. It blew leaves away from the base of the cliff unveiling a sparkling green stone. This fascinated Kye nearly more than May's voice and he knew that this is what he needed to take back in order to be named leader. He needed to get the stone elusively without May seeing him. As he came closer to it, he thought that he was in the clear. Closer and closer he got until something suddenly collided with his shoulder at such an impact that it made him unbalanced. It was May. She threw herself at him in order to protect the stone. Both would stop at nothing to get it. They became so aggressive with each other that they dropped over the edge of the cliff. Both Kye and May crashed down at the bottom of the cliff. Their corpses are there but May still thinks she is alive. Why? Because she is above the water and floating in the air. She doesn't realize she is dead until she sees her body. Then she is being born again.....into Tetisheri. Time goes from prehistory, to Egypt in 1280 B.C.E., to Athens in 399 B.C.E., to Salem, Massachusetts in 1691, the Battle of Honey Springs on July 17, 1863, to Paris in 1937, to Mississippi in 1964 and ending in New York during present times. The lives they play happen in about the same way. They each live a life their own until one day they meet and find the connection with each other. For some reason there is always something that keeps them apart though. Will they ever figure out what it is? Will they end up with their "soul mate"?

I think this novel by Suzanne Weyn is great because of her style of writing. I like the way she changes her settings toward the middle and plays off of history. In the beginning I thought the pacing was monotonous and uncaptivating which made me put the book down and not read it for a while. But when I tried it a second time, I pushed myself to read it and after a couple chapters the pacing really picked up. Even though this book seems to be written from a Buddhist point of view I really liked it and would recommend it to everyone who likes an excellent love story because I am very pleased that I read it.