Title: Stormbreaker
Author: Anthony Horowitz
List: #107 on BBC Top 200
Worth reading? Yes, but more for kids.
I got a Kindle in December. I love that it takes up much less room in my purse on the subway trek to and from work every day and that it works wonderfully for taking multiple books with me when I travel. I don’t like that our local public library has very limited Kindle offerings and that there are ridiculously long hold queues on the books they do have. When a title finally becomes available, I only have three days to download it and can then choose a one, two, or three week lending period. The problem with this is that when I’m happily in the middle of a free Kindle book and one of my holds becomes available, I have to abandon the book I’m reading and start the library book. This complicates my blogging!
Anyway, Stormbreaker became available over the weekend, and I finished it today during lunch. It is pretty short, only 148 pages, and written for a pre-teen or young teen audience. It reminded me a bit of The Hardy Boys or Tom Swift, but is probably more similar to James Bond for kids. The fourteen-year-old hero, Alex Rider, is recruited by MI6 and sent on a mission equipped with kid-appropriate spy gear. And adventures ensue.
In November, I dismissed Artemis Fowl because I didn’t think it was that creative despite the inclusion of fairies, so I feel a little weird praising this book. But somehow I find that Stormbreaker is a better book. It is still geared for children, but doesn’t seem quite as childish as Artemis Fowl, perhaps because it didn’t resort to the gimmicks of crude jokes and fake swearing. Instead, Stormbreaker is more of a straightforward, classic spy tale, though of course on a shorter and less complicated scale. And I think the book is perfect for its audience. I just hope the next two books in the series are as enjoyable because they are also on the list and already downloaded to my Kindle!
Author: Anthony Horowitz
List: #107 on BBC Top 200
Worth reading? Yes, but more for kids.
I got a Kindle in December. I love that it takes up much less room in my purse on the subway trek to and from work every day and that it works wonderfully for taking multiple books with me when I travel. I don’t like that our local public library has very limited Kindle offerings and that there are ridiculously long hold queues on the books they do have. When a title finally becomes available, I only have three days to download it and can then choose a one, two, or three week lending period. The problem with this is that when I’m happily in the middle of a free Kindle book and one of my holds becomes available, I have to abandon the book I’m reading and start the library book. This complicates my blogging!
Anyway, Stormbreaker became available over the weekend, and I finished it today during lunch. It is pretty short, only 148 pages, and written for a pre-teen or young teen audience. It reminded me a bit of The Hardy Boys or Tom Swift, but is probably more similar to James Bond for kids. The fourteen-year-old hero, Alex Rider, is recruited by MI6 and sent on a mission equipped with kid-appropriate spy gear. And adventures ensue.
In November, I dismissed Artemis Fowl because I didn’t think it was that creative despite the inclusion of fairies, so I feel a little weird praising this book. But somehow I find that Stormbreaker is a better book. It is still geared for children, but doesn’t seem quite as childish as Artemis Fowl, perhaps because it didn’t resort to the gimmicks of crude jokes and fake swearing. Instead, Stormbreaker is more of a straightforward, classic spy tale, though of course on a shorter and less complicated scale. And I think the book is perfect for its audience. I just hope the next two books in the series are as enjoyable because they are also on the list and already downloaded to my Kindle!
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