Boys Books

I love this series. The charachters are well developed, the vocabulary is rich, and the adventure is high, and it never gets boring. I reccomend this series for anyone between 12 and 18.

This book is not one to disappoint. In fact I am a slow reader and I was able to read this book all the way through on a five hour flight! Muchamore's best writing characteristic is his characters they are deep and REAL which makes this book and all his others excellent beyond comparison. In fact I ordered some of his other books from England because they were not available in US.

I purchased this book for my 14-year old son. He loves this series. Read each book in a couple of days because he couldn't set it down.

The Dealer
By: Robert Muchamore

The book I read was The Dealer by Robert Muchamore. In this report I will be telling you all about the book. I will tell you things about the main characters to the plot, the setting and my opinion on the book. Well I know you can't wait to read this let's get started.
"Good Guys": The main character in this book is James Adams. He was also the main character in the first book in this series. James is a 13 year old boy who works for a secret part of the British Military called Cherub. Kyle Blueman is one of James best friends at Cherub. Kyle met James at an orphanage while recruiting for Cherub. Kerry Chang is also one of James best friends at Cherub and he has a little crush on her. James and Kerry went through basic training together (basic training is a 100 day training period where agents prove they are worthy to be in Cherub). Nicole Eddison is another Cherub agent, one of James and Kerry's friends. James little sister Lauren, is also at Cherub, but she hasn't passed basic training yet.
"Bad Guys": The main bad guy is Keith Moore. He is a drug dealer and head of Keith Moore's Gang. Keith Moore Jr. (aka junior) is one Keith Moore's son (more about him later). April Moore is one of Keith Moore's daughter. Ringo Moore is Keith's other son and Erin is his other daughter. Dinesh is the son of Keith Moore's business partner, who helps bag cocaine for Keith Moore.
The story is about how four kids (James, Kerry, Kyle and Nicole) help bust the drug dealer Keith Moore. The kids assignments on the mission are to befriend the Moore children. James has to befriend Junior, Kerry and Erin, Nicole and April and Kyle is supposed to befriend Ringo. This is a dangerous job. James becomes a drug deliverer for Keith and so does Kerry. Nicole gets a thing going with Junior and James pretends to like April. James, April, Nicole and Junior all are friends and they go over to the Moore house a lot. Kerry finds out about Dineshe's Dad and Kerry James and his sister Laurens investigate the warehouse and found where Keith gets his cocaine bagged. James and Kerry get their cocaine stolen on a test run and they fight to get it back. After they do, Keith is very proud of them and tells them that Kerry can work with James on deliveries. After a party Nicole and Junior use cocaine and Nicole has to go to the hospital. Junior invite's James to go to Miami with him and his dad, Keith. On one of there last nights in Miami there house gets ambushed and James kill's a man in self defense. Then James runs away and meets up with the DEA official who has been helping him. They end up getting Keith Moore in prison for 15-20 years.
This story's setting takes place in a couple of places in London and in Miami, Florida.
The theme of this novel is about kids our age that work for MI5 and they help put a drug leader into prison.
I absolutely loved this story. I have read this book around 8 or 9 times. I can't stop reading it. The author makes it very addicting. The story is so good and exciting you never want to put this book down. I love how the author doesn't make it too unbelievable, yet he doesn't make it boring either. I also like the topic. Now there is a major problem with drugs and it makes sense to write a story about it. Robert Muchamore did a great job writing this book from a kid's perspective. It seems like a 12 or 13 year old kid is telling you this story. I highly recommend any 5th or 6th grade student, or older to pick up this book. Actually they should read the first book in the series (I could go on and on about it also).
Review was written by Matthew Wine.

I thought that this book wouldn't be as good as "Mystery Of Smugglers' Cove." But I was definitely wrong! "The Demon's Den" has some surprising text, teriffic, never-ending action, and the plot was totally freaky. Demons, superhumans, Old Sam, and so on. You just can't miss this one!

I thought that this book wouldn't be as good as "Mystery Of Smugglers' Cove. But I was definitely wrong! "The Demon's Den" has some surprising text, teriffic, never-ending action, and the plot was totally freaky. Demons, superhumans, Old Sam, and so on. You just can't miss this one!

I think that this just about beats Mystery of Smugglers' Cove. Matter of fact, it does. Sometimes in the book there's some scary (but not bad) language. It's surprising how Franklin Dixon got this idea for this sort of writing in the book. It's also a great book on genetic engineering and science. It's amazing about Rhee doing his tricks, and the action is normal, but wonderfully done. So take the time to read this book, and you won't think there's any better Hardy Boys book (and it's true, you'll believe me). Bon Reading it! (Enjoy reading it)!

I think that this just about beats Mystery of Smugglers' Cove. Matter of fact, it does. Sometimes in the book there's some scary (but not bad) language. It's surprising how Franklin Dixon got this idea for this sort of writing in the book. It's also a great book on genetic engineering and science. It's amazing about Rhee doing his tricks, and the action is normal, but wonderfully done. So take the time to read this book, and you won't think there's any better Hardy Boys book (and it's true, you'll believe me). Bon Reading it! (Enjoy reading it)!

Medina takes you back to your childhood with his depiction of the life and times and dreams of Deshawn Days. This book take you right back to age ten and it'll resonate with you whether you live in the Projects or on Park Avenue. My Grandmother's Legs is one of my favorites because Medina's description of Deshawn's grandmother is practically identical to what my own would be. The death of his grandmother hits home with anyone who has ever lost a relative who was close to them. Only a true artist can capture that. Medina is superb!

James Smith

I enjoyed this book. It gave a look at a young boy not living in a conventional household. It doesn't give into stereotypes regarding children from split homes. I like the fact that the story focuses on the important aspects of DeShawn's life. He tends to notice the little things rather than on the big picture. I like the way it is something that many kids are able to relate to. It isn't just for one group, one gender, or one race. Certain aspects of the story are relatable to anyone who reads the book. DeShawn is also a very relatable character. The reader feel drawn into the story and cannot wait to turn to the next page to see what will happen. The illustrations are also so tied into the story that a reader need not read the story, they could figure out what was going on through the pictures.

Mr. Medina's "DeShawn Days" captures what life looks like from the view of a child growing up in an urban and distinctly ethnic area. DeShawn is an African-American child, but this is only by coincidence. He describes his world from a universal perspective-- he sees and experiences both love, friendship, play, and family bond like any other kid would, except these experiences are juxtaposed against what can sometimes be a harsh and unforgiving landscape. Mr. Medina somehow presents just the right balance between both the difficult realities as well as the, yes, believe it or not, joys, both of which actually do exist in what some folks like to call "the ghetto." It's reading that I think kids like DeShawn will relate to, and other kids will learn, understand, and yes, enjoy.

Tony Medina shares his inner city neighborhood with lively verse, a sense of humor and a tender heart. Reaching out to his young audience, Medina's story inspires joy and compassion without being the least bit didactic.

R. Gregory Christie's energetic paintings celebrate De Shawn's world with sensitivity and passion. Bravo, this book is a gem.

Chris Cannon explains why so many of our young men get into trouble starting at early ages, and writes a prescription on how to stop this epidemic. People who are appalled at crime and incarceration statistics will be shocked to find out in this book that prisons in America are big business, encouraging the incarceration of young men, and discouraging rehabilitation and correction. Anyone interested in the future of our children, our educational system, or our society in general will not be able to put this book down.

Chris Cannon has created a great tool to help in the daily battle of men teaching boys to become productive young men. As a employee in an Urban School District, it is plain to see the factors that contribute to young men taking the wrong forks in the road. Chris brings to light the numerous factors starting from childhood that lead to the mental, emotional and physical destruction of our young men. On a personal level, I was forced to deal with some of my very own personal feelings and the reasons I had them. This book is also a great tool for not only identifying and understanding problems, but it also provides answers and root causes. I think every man who works with young men should read this book. Not only to assist and understand, but also to grasp the reasonings behind our own insecurities about being productive men in todays world.

It is rare that I read an entire book in one day. However, I could not put this book down. It communicated vital information in such an interesting and powerful way that I was compelled to not stop reading it until I reached the end. Mr. Cannon puts forth a plethra of facts that are completely sobering regarding the forces that are against youth today. The good news is, he does not stop there, he shares useful tools that any parent can immediately put into practice with their children. It is easy to be a bearer of what all is wrong with the world, but it takes a man of courage to challenge you and convey what you can do about it. I must mention, I do not have any children, yet I was still deeply impacted by this book.

No Child Left Behind is yet ANOTHER in a series of serious failures of our government to attempt a rescue of the educational system. NCLB does NOT teach the material, nor touch the applications or implications of the literature, math and social science skills required. Chris's book goes point by point over our social history pre- and post-NCLB. He also points out serious deficits from his own personal classroom teaching experience, penal system counselling, and current ministry. The real issue, he points out, is the "slavery" social system in this country that ENFORCES (and therefore literally FEEDS) a steady stream of failed children and young adults into programs to keep social workers, special ed teachers, law enforcement, the penal system, pharmaceutical companies and the doctors who prescribe those meds to our children busy in their jobs, productive, in power and in full control. Immigrants, lower/middle class minorities and the poor of all stripes don't stand a chance ... unless we ALL wake up and demand truly revolutionary change. I enjoyed the current research, his energetic speaking style, and the urgent, though not strident, tone. After reading this book, I was asking myself: "How do I get OFF this bus?"

I just finished reading The Dragon Boy and thought that this book deserved a round of applause. Donald Samson put more than his heart into this book. This book was truly amazing and brought me to a fantastical world I have not been to in many years. The end however is by far what made me feel the way I do about this book. I thought the final two chapters were wonderful, inspiring, and heartwarming. It gave me a joyous feeling and I am very excited for the sequel.

Donald Samson's "Dragon Boy" speaks to the same general audience that made the Harry Potter books so successful; boys and girls at the cusp of puberty, longing for the security of childhood, but eager for the adventure and unpredictability of the next stage of their lives. Rowlings' books are written like the screenplays they were meant to become, and her characters have a cardboard, stereotype quality to them. Donald Samson's book is good literature, beautifully written, with a feeling for descriptive detail and a sense of speech rarely encountered in today's young adult book world. Samson's story marries the medieval and the modern -- just where and when is all this taking place -- and captures the consciousness of a young man who is at once dreamy and wide awake, naive and cunning, bullied and dauntless. Its truest antecedent might be Wagner's "Siegfried," although Samson's generosity of spirit extends far more sympathy to his dragon than does Wagner! I hope that this book will attract a wide audience of all ages.

I got this book for my 10th birthday. The author signed it for my mom at a bookstore in Woodland Hills. I finished it in three days because it was fantastic! I loved reading about the Dragon. He was friendly, lucky and big. Boy was the main character. He was a very special young lad that grew up in the dumps. He grew up to be courageous. You won't regret reading this story! I can't wait till the next two books are published!

I should probably admit it at the outset that until a year or so ago, I never read this sort of book. No, my time was almost always spent reading academic tomes but Harry Potter, which I picked up on a lark got me hooked and Dragon Boy kept the momentum going. I have now finished book one of Donald Samson's Star Trilogy and found it fascinating. I just kept turning pages deeply caught up in this very well told tale of a boy who loves a very special dragon. Clearly written for a young adult audience, it nevertheless kept this aging boomer turning pages with a smile.

This book was so good it inspired jealousy. I wished every night as a child that I would wake up the next morning as Edwin, in that wonderful Indiana home of his Grandfathers! He writes with a visual-ness that truly puts you in the book with him. He sets the period very well, and the book is a pleasure to read and re-read.

An excellent look at the early life of one of the best naturalists this country has ever produced. This book will be an inspiration to every budding naturalist out there. It does bring to mind one flaw in the life of Edwin Teale - there is not a complete biography of his life.

This book gives a glimpse into the world of farm life in Northwest Indiana before the turn of the century. A child's view of the life on his grandparents' farm and the delights it offered a "city" boy on his summer vacations. Of special interest to local persons as it mentions people who lived in the area.

The late Edwin Way Teale's "Dune Boy," originally published in 1943, entertained a hundred thousand American troops overseas during WWII and with his enamoring portraits of life at the turn of the last century in the Indiana Dunes; A special ribbon of land hugging the Hoosier Coast that most of those servicemen had probably never heard of prior, but a seemingly magical place where Teale and so many other writers, poets and artists were inspired (Nelson Algren; Meyer Levin; Elma Lobaugh; Majorie Hill Allee; Arnold Mulder; Julia Cooley Altrocchi; Earl Reed; Helga Sandburg; Thomas Rogers; Steve Tesich; the poets, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and the artists Frank Dudley, John Templeton, and the `Furnessville Ten' alumni of the School of the Chicago Art Institute and also LeRoy Neiman who had painted an amazing 8' x 56' mural "A Day at the Indiana Dunes in 1965.)

Ironically Teale's setting of his childhood memories was a rural country only sixty miles down the Lake Michigan coastline from Chicago, but a charming farm community with a tiny English village, eccentric neighbors and vagabonds who camped and resided amongst the knobby sand dunes, dark virgin forests, marshes all abounding in wildlife and fauna. A time when slow moving milk and strawberry trains made local stops to picked up their harvests for the city markets and a time when young boys adventured with mail order cameras and witnessed the first airplanes take flight. Teale had touched the hearts of so many American servicemen overseas because he reminded them of the homes they longed to return to when so far away at war.

Teale's maternal grandparent's farm `Lone Oak' has long disappeared off any local maps and alas many of the local sand dunes were destroyed by the coming of even more steel mills and other industrial plants which have polluted the shore ever since. However, some of the people Teale portrayed and immortalized in `Dune Boy,' their headstones can be found in the quaint Furnessville cemetery, which is today surrounded by the surviving 1863 Lewry House; the 1880 Furness Mansion; the 1886 Schoolhouse Shop, and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore; A bountiful national preserve, home to the modern science of ecology, and habitats to wildlife and plant species not found anywhere else in the American Midwest. A charm that inspired Teale to become the prolific author and American Naturalist of his time remains in these Indiana Dunes. Teale's "Dune Boy" is a testament, which can inspire todays and future generations to save what remains of the great sand dunes of Indiana. It is one of our family Classics and a recommended reading for anyone who has a passion to Save the Dunes or who comes to visit our Indiana home.

I recommend reading `Dune Boy' with `Ann's Surprising Summer' by Marjorie Hill Allee, (published earlier in 1923) but concerning the Great Depression years and the portrait of a collegiate woman and that of her family camped in the dunes, and that fiction read with Thomas Rogers "At The Shores" (published in 1980) set between the World Wars, which continues the adventures of young adolescents in the Indiana Dunes. The recent publication "Moonlight in Duneland" an oversize tome by the historians, Ronald D. Cohen and Stephen McShane, illustrates the travel posters of the early 20th century that promoted the Indiana Dunes and can add depth to the above reads.

This is a wonderfull book. Hank is my godfather and I had never heard his story before I read the book. I always thought my uncle was an amazing man but this proved it. The hardships he endured and lose of his family were horrible but he is a very spiritual person who does not hold thing against people. He didn't let what happen to him change him. I am very proud of him.

This story of the forgotten victims of WWII is told from a unique perspective. Two friends--the author and the subject--were personally touched by the war in very different ways. One, a german child, victimized only by the disemination of misinformation and, the other, a polish child, victimized both physically and psychologically, enslaved by the Russian allies, separated from family, seizes the opportunity to search for better life for himself and his sister. The author artfully intertwines history and real life experiences. The story is, in many parts, heartbreaking and, in all parts, facinating.

Exiled To Siberia: A Polish Child's WWII Journey is the engaging biography of a ten-year-old Polish boy deported by the Soviets at the outbreak of World War II. From Henryk Birecki's childhood in a Polish village to his ultimate integration into American society after the war, the reader is treated to a candid and informative story of the hardships and cruelties brought about by the forcible deportation of Polish men, women and children to the bleak and hazardous interior of the Soviet Union. Thousands of Poles died during transport and in the penal and forced labor camps, remote settlements, and the Kolkhozes to which they were banished. After the end of the war Henryk and his sister made it out of the Soviet Union (where his mother died), through Iran and Iraq, then Mexico, and finally to America. Exiled To Siberia is sobering reading and brings those times and events vividly to life for new generations of readers to know and understand the inhumanity and tragedy that afflicted the civilian populace of Eastern Europe during those dark and deadly days.

When I initially read this book just after it was published I called the author and thanked him for writing the book. Most of my mother's family was killed in Ark Angel, Russia and my mother grandmother, and great-aunt were all interned in many of the same places that were described in the book. It is well researched and should be necessary reading for all school aged children. it is both inspiring and educational.

Tim continues to produce wonderful children's literature. This book of poetry reminded me of the style of Shel Silvertein. Tim's artwork is as valuable as his words - as usual. I recommend not only this book - but all Tim's books. They have humor in words and detailed art that will entertain and entertain while fueling the imagination!

I just saw an advance copy of this great poetry book for kids! In the tradition of A.A. Milne, but energetic and fun-packed for today's generation.

Every child has some word or phrase that becomes *his* for a short time. For my little guy at fifteen months old, it's "Steamrollers!"

Delightful art, wonderful execution, and a dollop of Seussian scansion ("seventh-eighths riot and one-quarter zoo" could have come from the Doctor). Only brevity keeps this from being a five-star selection -- boy & I both wanted MORE.

Bravo Tim for a great piece of work.

This is one of the funniest childrens books I have read. My daughter loves having me read it to her, and I enjoy it just as much. I highly recommend it!

This story is perfect for teens and bright pre-teens. Although it was written many years ago, the only sense you get of dated-ness is in the language, which might seem somewhat stilted to today's audience; the story itself is totally modern.

Five boys become friends of sorts over a summer vacation. They discover a cave and decide to explore it. In the process they become trapped and must try to find a way out. Each boy shows the kind of person he really is: in how he responds to stress, how he helps with or worsens the situation. This collusion of character is much more typical of an adult genre, but will be totally recognizable by any young adult. Combine this with the excellent description of the cave and a tension that is unrelenting, and you have a great story that is more than a match for the typical teen-stuff published today.

I read this book when it first came out (1951 or so) when I was about 12 & liked it very much. It's a great plot to introduce the concequences of certain decisions (good lessons for all young people, especially boys) & to show that our assumptions about a friend's character & his place in the "pack" may not be what we had thought.... & all told in a good old fashioned adventure tale.
This has remained 1 of my all time favorite books. It should be required reading in school. Makes for good out-loud reading, too, w/ lots of opportunity to share ideas about pre-conceptions & responsibility.

i read this book when i was in sixth grade, i am now 33 years old and i still remember what a great story it was to me, so much so that i bought it this christmas for my son who is now in sixth grade.Any story that does that must be brilliant, and it is

From page one this story reminds one of the adventures of youth. The miracle of discovering a cave and the anticipation and fear involved in exploring it seems to be bred into every young man.

Much like Golding's "Lord of the Flies," this story shows us the depth of a child's mind. The cave, both as a setting and as a metaphor, challenges the boys to become men in a crisis situation.

I highly recomend this book, if it can be found. It had the earmarks of classic literature.

I really liked this book because you really did not know what was going to happen next. The beginning was a bit slow but the end was very fast moving. The beginning was as fast as a bullet, the middle was as fast as sound and the end was fast as the speed of light. I especially liked the part when they were flying the jets and chasing the Max-1.
H. Gregory Moore IV.

Not many people realize that this is the story that the popular comedy classic film Airplane! parodied. So if you loved Airplane! you should read the original story.

The book, Flight into Danger,is the perfect book for those who love adventure stories and have extra time on their hands... because you won't be able to stop reading it!

Flight Into danger is captivating and has a lot of action capable of capturing even the most reluctent readers.