Review - Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell

Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell is an extremely entertaining book that reads more like a comic book than a novel due to the authors wonderful illustrations. My 5-year-old son love reading this and laughed at the crazy antics of the characters. This book is pretty short, but there is no lack of material, again due to the wonderful illustrations by Mr Riddell.

Overall grade: A-

Review - Gone by Michael Grant

Gone by Michael Grant is a truly fascinating novel. One moment Sam is sitting in school listening to the teacher drone on and the next minute everyone over 13 has disappeared. Sam then takes a journey not only to find out what has happened, but a journey to overcome his own short-coming and fears. Mr Grant writing is very easy and I was hooked after just a few pages. Twists and turns abound, and I was left guessing up until the end which is left wide open for a sequel which I highly anticipate. Mature themes like leadership, death, growing up, survival, and others make for wonderful character development and an excellent story. I highly recommend this one!

Overall grade: A

Review - Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

I decided to read Elantris by Brandon Sanderson after it was announced he would be completing the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. I read information about him and started with another of his books, but decided to read this one first. This ended up being a wonderful decision as this is an excellent book. The story follows three people and their interactions with a mysterious city called Elantris which was once a great city full of power but has since become a place of outcasts.

Roaden, the Prince of Arelon, is the first character we meet just as he discovers he has contracted the Reod. (for further explanations of the terms you can visit Mr Sanderson's website at www.brandonsanderson.com) We're next introduced to Sarene, Princess of Teod, who has come to Arelon to marry Raoden. The third character is Hrathen, a leader in the Shu-Dereth faith. The story follows these three characters as Hrathern prepares for the invasion of Arelon by converting everyone in the kingdom to Shu-Dereth faith while Sarene uses every trick she know to stop him and Roaden tries to make the most of a cursed life in the city of Elantris and figure out what has happened to Elantris and everyone who now lives there.

Mr Sanderson does a wonderful job of character and plot development. He devote one change for each character and often you see the same events from each of the three character's viewpoints. Adventure, political intrigue, and magic (that doesn't work) all combine in this book to give the reader a satisfying novel. The plot did seem to get a little slow towards the middle of the book and I found myself wanting the book to get on with it, but overall an excellent book. Elantris is a stand-alone fantasy novel that delivers!

Overall grade: A-

Oven Troubles

The other day when I went to cook something for dinner, I couldn't get the oven door to open. Stacie and I have been keeping the "self-clean" handled locked so that Noah doesn't open the door and try to climb in like he does with the dishwasher. Stacie said we can't live without an oven so I scheduled a service technician to come and check it out. Of course there is the adage, "they'll be there between 9am and 5pm" so you never know when there will actually show up. Since Stacie works a couple of blocks from the house, it is very easy for her to run home when they get there. There is also an automatic service call fee of $65 for the tech to show up at the house. So we are planning at least that much.

So after I get home from work the next day, the bill totals $150 and the door is still broken! Well, not really broken, but out of commission. The oven will work and the door opens but the lock is no longer functioning. Apparently, the service tech was only going to charge the show up fee but he had trouble getting the lock to open and ended up dismantling the back side of the stove so he charged for labor. Then he discovered that the solenoid for the self-clean was broken. Since the stove is so old, they don't have replacement parts handy and it would cost about $300 to order a new one. Stacie promptly refused to have them order one. So do we go buy a new stove or just make due with the one we have?

Well, we decided that for right now, a new oven is not what we need. It has been fun teaching Noah not to climb on the oven door, but I think he's finally learned. Oops, I gotta run, I just heard someone opening the squeaky oven door...

Audio Review - Ravenspell Series by David Farland

Ravenspell by David Farland is a series about a kid named Benjamin Ravenspell who magically gets turned into a mouse. Two books are currently published, "Of Mice and Magic" and "The Wizard of Ooze". Both were read by David Walker who did an amazing job with the voices and the singing (yes there is singing in the audio version).

I was impressed by "Of Mice and Magic" where Amber turns Ben into a mouse together they save the world from an evil bat who may or may not be Edgar Allen Poe. The adventure is excellent as well as the story line. I didn't find myself lacking at all though it was definitely written for younger children. That being said, the characters were believable, but I found myself wanting them to just grow up a bit especially the relationship between Ben and Amber. The author introduces several plot lines and some are not resolved until the second book. Overall, it was an excellent story that I thoroughly enjoyed. My grade: B

I was not impressed by "The Wizard of Ooze". It seems that you are taken back in time in the relationship between Ben and Amber and they have to figure out everything all over again. I was confused as to why the author would do this. The Wizard of Ooze is a "Darth Vader" character and he does have a son named "Luke Slimecrawler". I was really annoyed by the movie reference and the whole "let's take over the world" story. Yawn, where have we heard that before? Again, the magic in this book seemed again to be "I don't know what I'm doing with my magic" even though in the prior book Amber had seemed to figure it out. While there was some humor in the book and because I wanted to see how the author resolved the plot, I kept listening to this; however, I was really just glad to finish this book. My grade: C

Overall, the series was enjoyable but quickly got old. I wouldn't buy this for my family or put it on my bookshelf. It just wasn't that memorable for me. Overall Grade: C+

Movie - The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Last night, at the lovely hour of midnight, I went and saw Prince Caspian. After it was over (at 2:30am), I was talking with my brother about it and realized that I didn't remember anything from the book which also prompted a discussion about the entire series. I have read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe many time. It is one of my favorite books, but the series seems to stop there for me. I don't remember much of Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, or The Last Battle. I know that I have read at least some of these. I seem to vaguely remember something from Magician's Nephew and that I didn't end up reading it because it was not like the other novels. Maybe that is why I don't remember anything from the series other than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. However, after seeing this movie, I really want to re-read this entire series which presents a daunting task considering my currently reading list has had some books on it for months now and I can't seem to get through them.

Prince Caspian was a wonderful story with great actors/actresses and the CG effect were spectacular! There was a ton of humor throughout the movie that I though was brought out extremely well. On the flip side, there were some pretty intense scenes in the movie where I was holding my breath. I found a lot of similarities in this movie to other contemporary fantasy movies and wondered how many of C.S. Lewis' ideas have been "borrowed" over the years which again adds another reason I need to read this series. I highly recommend this movie to anyone.

Audio Review - A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan continues to be an amazing series. Each book seems to draw reader along and allows you to better understand the fantasy world Mr. Jordan has created, while providing a "mini" story within the series as a whole. I admit that I have never read any of these books; rather, I have listed to the series on audiobook with readers Kate Reading and Michael Kramer who do a wonderful job at bringing the characters to life.

A Crown of Swords (book 7 in the series) is another masterwork by a brilliant author. This books seems to drag a bit more than the others in the series. Not much happens that move the overall storyline along, and some parts were very long indeed (think of the quest for the Bowl of the Winds....I just wanted to be done with that), but it was again another well written book with many conflicts, characters, and intricacies I have come to expect from Mr. Jordan. Thanks goodness for the Encyclopaedia WOT to help sort out and keep on top of the confusion and characters. I look forward to listening to the next book in the series.

Overall rating: B-