Boys Books

When I was a very little girl, we lived in Indonesia and were in Japanese concentration camps during WWII.
I was interested in reading this book, because my brother was taken away at 11 and sent to a men's camp all by himself. I wanted to know what he had gone through.
This book will tell you a little of what we all went through in those years. It is written from a young boys view point and that was helpful to keep it less of a heavy read.
I think very few people know how many of us suffered hunger and illness in POW camps under the Japanese. It is history and hopefully we won't have to re-live this.

A decided to read this book after I heard the news that a movie based on it staring Jane Seymour will be filming next year. I read it only to better understand the movie, and was extremely surprised at what an excellent story I found it to be. It is told from the perspective of a little boy, about his struggles and triumphs, and the little things that help him cope with life in a concentration camp run by Japanese. If you think this is your typical "WW II survivor story", guess again. As I was reading I forgot the book was about a concentration camp. It became the story of a ordinary boy and his mother, and their day-to-day life amidst a horrific background. The harsh reality is it is a true story. I hope the movie does it justice. This book is extremely under-rated. It is up to par with Oprah's book club books. Please read it, and I think you will be surprised. If anyone knows how I can contact the author, please let me know.

The story is beyond an ugliness of human nature.How any one dare to challenge "How about Hiroshima ?" The boy is above all these and almost religius. The Japanese Emperor and the Governmentaologized for the undue cruelities inflickted on the internees, but the most interesting thing is that they did no do so to their own people who were victims themselves under the Japanese Military systems.

i am 16 years old and read this book for the first time last year. i truly enjoyed reading the book. i am not into books which have a difficult plot or a lot of long words but anyone can undersatnd this book. i cant imagine what the boy would have went through and had to keep on reminding myself that this actually happened. i definitely do not think that this book is given the credit in which it is worth. reading the book makes you realise what a good life you have compared to what the boy went through. so go out and read the book now. p.s. have a box of tissues ready!!!

This is really a great read. Every child and adult I know who's picked this up can't put it down. Weather Boy is the story of a 10 year old boy who plays an important role in the landing of D-Day. The book is full of adventures (including an exciting parachute jump with his father, who is a paratrooper), humor, poignancy and, of course, history. My grandchildren have learned a lot reading Weather Boy, as have I. I recommend this to all. Enjoy!

History and fun in the same book - what a concept! My kids, and my friends' kids, couldn't put it down. Weather Boy is the story of 10 year old Frankie who is shocked while listening to a weather report on the radio. The U.S. Army finds out and brings his family to England, where Frankie helps predict the weather for the D-Day landing. I loved his adventures - especially the parachute jump with his dad - and the characters. Be sure to share this book!

A wonderful read for kids and adults. The story has everything - great character development, a powerful father-son relationship, humor, adventure, and of course an important historical event. I wish Middle Schools would pick this book up, particularly for those kids who are still struggling to read - the book presents a lively history in a fun, easy-to-read manner that doesn't talk down to anyone. And as this generation of WWII vets sadly dies out, we need to pass this history along. I recommend the book highly to anyone and everyone!

What a find! I was looking for something for my 8-year-old to read when I came across this fantastic novel. The protagonist is a young boy, Frankie Brown, who lives in Cape Cod in 1944 and who magically can predict the weather. Word gets out about Frankie's "gift" and pretty soon General Eisenhower is enlisting his services to help the Allied Forces in WWII. I bought this for my son and we couldn't put it down. Suspenseful (wait to you see what is in "the magic case")! Great characters (like Dr. Proctor, Dr. Stagg, and Cap)! Tremendous climax (Frankie helps to rescue his father who is behind enemy lines)! Funny! Educational (readers learn about Churchill, Normandy, the London Bombings, and Paratroopers)! I would recommend this book to readers of all ages, not just kids. My son always asks me to read it to him and to be honest I think I enjoy it more than he does.

Using his Pychon-esque writing capabilities, his clever, but not flashy wit, and unbelievable narrative abilities, Eric Kraft has shapen one the most unique and interesting books I have ever read. It was recomended to me by a friend. I was reluctant to start, but I wound up reading it in about two days.
The series of books are the memoirs or a fiction character, and his life on long island. Within the narrative, there are simple clues that begin to tell you the this Fictional character isn't alwaystelling whole truth. But, he's fictional to begin with, so does it really matter. The book is filled with great quirks like that, not to mention that it is one of the funniest things you will ever read. Eric is one of the few authors who truly understands the mind of an 11 year old boy. He offers a wonderful glimps of life as a child during the 1950's, and touches issues such as race, funding in public schools, and ratio of beer to lemonade creates the perfect shandy.

Just as I wish Eric Kraft was my junior high language arts teacher, I also wish I had Miss Reingold for 7th grade general science. As with his other books, Kraft once again takes me back to childhood - this time to adolescence - during a time when my mind was a bit more open, and on occasion would be challenged by a caring teacher who tempted me to think outside the textbook.

This book is a joy to read; so entertaining in fact, that the reader can easily lose himself in the anecdotes, and later have the full meaning of the book sneak up on him. In 7th grade science class, Peter must answer the question "Where do you stop?" With little specific direction from his teacher, he is forced to abandon his encyclopedias and open his mind, and finds himself applying the meaning of the question to various parts of his life. As a result, this novel modestly approaches the grand subject of how the individual fits into the universe - how infinite is each of our effect on each other and the world? and where does it stop? or does it stop?

As with his other works, it is difficult to do this book justice in a review as its contents can be enjoyed on so many levels (from the scientific and philosophical to reflections on childhood fantasies). For my sake, and the sake of other readers who love Eric Kraft, I hope the words "to be continued" were not merely symbolic of the book's title, but that the story will continue...Here's hoping he does not stop.

Who but Eric Kraft could write a novel about diffusion? "Where do you stop?" is the question assigned to 11-year- old Peter LeRoy by his science teacher as the molecules of her perfume pervade the room. The image of diffusion per- vades the novel, from Peter's childhood memory of mixing peas and mashed potatoes, to racial intergration in the fictional community of Babbington. Memory itself is a series of vignettes suspended in the "Zwischenraum" of time. And of course we can't really tell where one of Mr. Kraft's novels stops and the next one begins as he chronicles Peter's life. The story ("to be continued") is told with Mr. Kraft's usual humor and digressiveness. We learn more about Babbington of the 1950s, clam capital of the world, and catch Peter at a time between childhood and awakening sexuality (that perfume). Grandpa Herb, the Studebaker salesman, makes another great invention, an automatic garden sprinkler.

Take one ten-year-old boy going on eleven, quantum physics, the mysteries of sex, grown-ups and an apparently ever-widening world to know and you have the ingredients of this entrancing novel by Erik Kraft. I recommend it highly to all readers as a painless and entertaining way to get a genuine feel for the the non-aristotelian approach implicit in quantum physics as filtered through the brain of a wonderfully curious youth.

The book is written in the form of a memoir by middle-aged hotel owner and memoirist, Peter Leroy, and continues the recounting of his nineteen-fifties childhood in Babbington, Long Island, "Clam Capital of America," which began with the previous Kraft novel, Little Follies.

The present title, refers to a question for a science paper assigned by Peter's new seventh grade "general science" teacher Miss Rheingold, who has distracting legs, a passion for quantum physics and a disconcerting way of asking discumbobulating questions.

The science paper must answer one of the six questions that the children pick out of a glass bowl on the first day of class. Their paper must include a demonstration or experiment and diagrams and has no deadline. You might wish to try your hand at them yourself:
Where does the light go when the light goes out?
When is now?
What is the biggest question of all?
Why are you you?
What really happens?
Where do you stop? (p. 43)

Peter picks the final question and with some of the other members of his group finds that he gets taken over by the question:
"If it seems like a simple question to you, try thinking about it with a ten- or eleven-year-old brain. Well, where are the edges of things? Where in space-time, for instance, does one phase of your life end and another begin? Where do you mark the onset of an idea, a discovery? Where do you mark the end of a belief?" (p. 5)

The novel follows Peter's discoveries during the school year as he becomes aware that the distinct boundaries that separate people, `ideas' and things may not appear so clearly when examined closely.

The scientifically and sexually-awakening Peter takes particular delight in realizing that smelling anything involves taking molecules of that substance into ourselves and that at a sub-atomic level some of the electrons from one thing or person may overlap with those of another.
He explains this to Ariane, a seventeen-year old woman, for whom he has developed a crush:
" '...You think you stop here, at your skin--'
I touched her. Without thinking about the liberty I
was taking, I put my hand on her leg...Apparently I was too close, because she slapped my hand and said, 'Down, boy.'
'Sorry,' I said, though I was not sorry at all. 'But
the thing is that you don't stop here.' I hesitated a moment, then touched her finger, just barely touched it, to show her what I meant. "This isn't the edge of you. It looks like it, but it isn't. Little bits of you are spreading out. All over the room. I know they are, because I can smell them.'
'That's sick.'
'No, no. it's not,' I said, 'You smell great, I love
smelling you.'
'Peter!' she said with a grimace. 'If you don't cut this out, you're going to have to go home.' " (p.151-152)

We see Peter and his world expanding in other ways as he becomes aware of the dark-skinned people who live on the other side of Babbington. He befriends one of them, Marvin, another member of his "where do you stop" group. Through Marvin he realizes that the boundaries that have been set up between the whites and blacks of Babbington have less rigidity and that he and Marvin have a great deal more in common than some adults suppose.

The book appears full of many tempting general-semantics-oriented nuggets. For example, Peter describes a method of demonstrating a chain reaction using mousetraps and ping-pong balls, illustrated on the book's front cover, that sounds tempting to try. Peter's discussion of "cumulative error" with his adult friend Porky provides an amusing analogy for time-binding, both positive and negative.

Indeed, with the demonstrations, diagrams and discussion of "Where Do You Stop," the adult Peter Leroy, writing years later, realizes that with his memoir of his seventh grade year he has finally completed his general science project for Miss Rheingold. Kraft has managed to meld his characters, story and theme together into 181 pages of artless-seeming art that truly conveys the sense of a bright and inquiring ten-year-old learning more about himself and his world. The book has another bonus as well. Before you finish reading you will probably discover, as I did, that you have joined Peter's group.

`Where is My Bennie?' is a delightful children's story of love for a stuffed animal. Authors April, Celeste & Ruby Robins do a wonderful job of sharing the adventure of Austin's mission to find his missing `Bennie'. Any child reading this will sympathize with Austin and yearn to know if Bennie is found and where Bennie is found. The underlying story is one of storytelling magic and delight for all children. I highly recommend this children's story as a delightfully told mishap turns into a `happy ending'.

Rating Number Is: 5 *****
www.thebookattic.us
Reviewer-Author Anastasia Cassella-Young
and Author Theodocia McLean-Owner of thebookattic.us

I read this to the grand son at bedtime and he started repeating the line "where is my bennie?" every time I finished one of the search areas. He really liked it. This a good book to read at bed time.

This book addresses the special relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. It reminded me of the importance of taking children's losses seriously and how wonderful it is when you play a part in solving their problems. I loved it!

Where is My Bennie? deals with the love between a young boy and his favorite stuffed toy. Austin cannot go to sleep without his best friend, Bennie. Austin travels to his grandparent's home in the country to spend the week. Almost immediately, Bennie becomes missing. Grandma has gone to town, so Austin and Grandpa must find the missing Bennie. Hunter, Grandma's dog, follows their every move. The book has seventeen colorful illustrations depicting country life and the love between family members. It is written by a mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law writing team who have extensive experience working with the school systems. If a child has a favorite stuffed animal, he will love Where is My Bennie?

I would also recommend that you be on the lookout for ¿Dónde está Mi Bennie? which is the Spanish Language Edition of Where is My Bennie? It should go on sale before the end of the year, 2007. It is an exact Spanish translation of the English version: thereby, allowing a page by page comparison of the two languages for any age student.

i loved this book. this was seriously the first book ive ever read cover to cover. i am bout to read the whole thing over again. i didnt want it to end (hahaha). right now i am trying to find some more books by john hall but i cant seem to find any. i loved this book it is my favorite book of all time. i give it a 100 on a scale of 1 to 10.

(...)i read the book and i thought it was best book i read
Ben is the sweetest guy even as a charactor i really liked and usually i don't read but my mom got me that book and i read it within a day.

This book really made me laugh. The way Ben tried to impress Lexie by telling her that he was a big rich guy was sooooo funny. I've read this book 3 times already and I'm still not tired of it. I still pick it up and read it when I'm bored. This book is wonderful and you will never ever get tired of reading it.

I got a kick out of WHERE THE BOYS ARE. It was pretty amusing to watch good-guy Ben try to dig himself out of a pit of half-truths as he tries to impress a beautiful girl who innocently believes he _lives_ in the posh bungalow he was cleaning. This book cheered me up on a bad day. Who could ask for more?

Very funny! Amazingly detailed memories. A great read-aloud for the whole family.

The author's vivid descriptions of the mountains and terrain, the weather and the trials and tribulations of hiking, camping, building log structures and the camaraderie of such an outstanding troop is nothing but masterful ! What the author has produced should be a legend for all those presently in scouting. I truly doubt that any other troop has ever been or will be as dedicated or productive as 511. Braman has really chronicled the true spirit of scouting in a way that will inspire future generations of scouts, even though I doubt that it will ever be equaled. Where "The Fuzzy Marmots Grow" is a work of art. This book was a pleasure to read, it captivates the reader and it's hard to put down. I certainly enjoyed it

This delightful memoir of boyhood is a chronicle of humor, nostalgia and charm. It's story-telling at its best. Unequivocally recommended to those who enjoy remembering, reliving, the spirit of youth - when the miracle of adventure was an everyday occurrence. Lovingly conceived, deftly written.

James Braman's book is a delightful, charmingly-told story about Boy Scout Troop 511 of Bremerton, Washington. The boys' rollicking adventures as they explore the wilds of the Northwest and venture forth in their ancient Fageol bus to view the wonders of Grand Coulee Dam are thoroughly entertaining. At the same time, the book subtly provides a recipe for building character and a foundation for success in life--simply bring together strong, caring leaders and eager, adventurous youth, and the effect can be powerful and lasting! Where the Fuzzy Marmots Grow is an enjoyable read for everyone--from preteens to grandparents.. Highly recommended!

We love Wiley and Grampa! In this book, the eggnog morphs into terrible things... a hammer, a skull... a giant math book! My 7 year old son just cracked up over that. He loves all of the Wiley and Grampa books. They are easy to read with great illustrations and terrific humor.

I love the Wiley & Grampa series by Kirk Scroggs. The Night of The Living Eggnog is great for the Christmas season. It's 7th in the series. So, be sure to check out the rest. These books are a lot of fun for boys who might be picky about what they read. If your child loves the Captain Underpants books, then turn him on to these.

Author of "Hobo Finds A Home" editor "Of A Predatory Heart"

Review by Anneliese Buenker (age 9) for Reader Views (10/07)

"Night of the Living Eggnog" is about a boy named Wiley and his Grandpa. This book is the seventh book in a series. In this book, Wiley finds a carton of eggnog with an expiration date of 1983. It is so rotten that it has come alive! When the lunch lady traps it with a container full of a toxic formula, the eggnog can suddenly transform into anything. It even attacks the city! That's all I'm going to tell you but "Night of the Living Eggnog" is a good story worth reading. It's a great book for 2nd - 4th graders.

My 8 yr old son had this book devoured the same night it was delivered. While he is an excellent reader he is also very picky about what he reads. Wiley & Grampa are high on his list.

I began to read The Winter People because it is on my school reading list. It is not the type of book I would normally pick up to read for pleasure. However once I got into the book I found it quite interesting. The book takes place before people were civilized like they are now, and is about people who have a completely different way of living. I can actually say I learned about another culture, by reading this book.

The story is about an Indian tribe that gets torn apart by white people. But specifically the book tells about a boy names Saxso that, in my opinion, truly becomes a man by the end. He gets separated from his mother and two sisters while escaping, and as the head of the family it is his job to get his family back together. After learning they had been taken by whites, Saxso sets off for a long, difficult journey to rescue them.

The Winter People is the type of book that is hard to start, but once you get into it, you'll be glad you kept reading.

I thought was a beautifully written story by Joseph Bruchac, about the Indian tribe, the Abenaki's. The simple and yet complex way he wrote it from the point of view of 14 year old Native American named Saxso, made it all the more interesting. Saxso is probably the most interesting character in this book aside from his cousin and grandfather. The description of what the British (the white people, or the winter people, the people with winter/cold in their hearts) were doing to the Native Americans after they captured them from the village upon their raid, actually brought tears to my eyes (I've never even heard of the British eating the Native Americans until I read this book. More genocidal things the world continues to hide from the people about what the Europeans, and British, among others who wronged these people, hide.). I continued to read the book until the very end which was satisfying in aspect of the word. I recommend this book to anyone who has a interest in Native Americans and their lives during the many wars that took place on the land they lived on.

This is a truly fasincating story told in a different perspective, through the eyes of a Native American. The novel shows us a totally opposite side of the stories and documents recorded and still used today in life. After I finally finished reading "The Winter People", I had an unique and new perspective towards the Abenakis. You will too, and I still do, hold a strong respect towards these people and their way of life.

I found this to be both an easy to read book, and historically accurate as well. Bruchac is an amazing writer, and teaches many lessons while the the story is told. This book should definately be read by middle school-high school students because it will help teach about both the native peoples and the Seven Years war, and help to wash away some of the stereotypes that have plagued native peoples for many years.
Justin

In the spring of 1851 Hawthorne wrote to his publisher, James Fields (of the renowned Ticknor and Fields), proposing a children's book retelling six well-known stories from Greek mythology. He planned to adopt "a tone in some degree Gothic or romantic." In addition, he wanted to make the fables suitable for young Christian children: "of course, I shall purge all the old heathen wickedness, and put in a moral wherever practicable."

I am usually not a fan of sanitized tales--even when written by someone the status of Nathaniel Hawthorne. But, in spite of their overt preachiness and their occasional preciousness, there's something charming and original about these adaptations. Even adults might enjoy these six tales: Perseus's slaughter of Medusa, Midas and his golden touch, Pandora's box (stripped of Prometheus's role), the apples of the Hesperides (or Hercules's Eleventh Labor), Baucis and Philemon and the magic pitcher (which, in my opinion, is the best of the lot), and Bellerophon and Pegasus's battle with the monster Chimaera.

Threading these stories together is Eustace Bright, Hawthorne's college-age narrator, who relates his versions to a gaggle of local children (a couple of whom taunt him for his bumptiousness). Hawthorne uses this framing device to insert himself as his own critic. Overhearing one of the stories, the father of one of the children is not amused, finding Eustace's taste "altogether Gothic" and advising him "never more to meddle with a classical myth." To this critique, Eustace petulantly responds that "an old Greek had no more right to them, than a modern Yankee has," and he accuses classical writers of forming these tales "into shapes of indestructible beauty, indeed, but cold and heartless." If anything, Hawthorne has certainly brought warmth to these old stories.

Still, the reading level might be a tall order for many children under 8 (although an adult can adapt them for reading out loud). Hawthorne sprinkles his prose with salutatory references to his real-life neighbors in the Berkshires (there's even a line about Melville writing "Moby Dick") and with puns and quips that have lost their context. And he gets carried away with his descriptions of the countryside. Hawthorne's evocative passages will surely strike modern readers as hopelessly old-fashioned, although the author realized that he was trying the patience of children even from his own day. After three florid and nearly insufferable paragraphs describing a meadow, for example, Hawthorne apologetically interrupts himself that "we must not waste our valuable pages with any more talk about the spring-time and the wild flowers. There is something, we hope, more interesting to be talked about."

What's more interesting, of course, are the stories of Greek gods and monsters and flying horses. Fortunately for readers young and old, Hawthorne mostly stays away from the scenery and sticks to the legends.

Once upon a time (I was about 8), a family friend handed down his Collier's Junior Classic series to me - each volume is a glorious hodgepodge of short stories from here, there, and everywhere. I got to be very fond of Greek mythology, especially "The Chimaera" and "The Miraculous Pitcher", since the Collier retellings of their respective legends were much more lively than the ordinary.

Alas, I forgot the name of the author of "The Chimaera", and even that my favourite versions of the myths were all written by the same person. Some talented guy writing for the series, no doubt, I would have said, if I'd thought about it. A couple of years ago, I started browsing through an impressive-looking illustrated volume of mythology in a bookstore (which you now see before you). Whoa. "Scarlet Letter" Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote *THESE*?

His retellings of Greek myths were originally spread over 2 volumes (the other being _Tanglewood Tales_), but they can be obtained in a single volume these days. I can personally do without the gang of Tanglewood kids providing the official audience for the stories-within-a-story, or the defense against critics put into the mouth of the storyteller Eustace Bright, but then I want more space for more myths. :) Each myth in _A Wonder Book_ has an Introductory and After the Story section where the storyteller leads up to the tale, then fends off any awkward questions from his young audience.

"The Gorgon's Head" - The story of Perseus, from his infancy through the quest for Medusa's head. Hawthorne skates delicately past the question of who put Perseus and his mother, Danae, in a chest and abandoned them on the sea, let alone why (toned down for kids, and all that), and of course doesn't go into detail about what mischief Polydectes might intend if Perseus can be got out of the way.

Hawthorne is otherwise thorough about details: he even includes the Three Gray Women, who share the use of a single eye, who had to be persuaded to reveal the location of the monsters whose gaze turns living creatures to stone.

"The Golden Touch" - The Midas legend, of how a king, blinded by a love of gold, foolishly asked Apollo that he be given the gift of turning things into gold with a touch. Be careful what you ask for...

"The Paradise of Children" - The story of Pandora's box. Hawthorne's version, much as I like his other mythological tales, has been prettified a little too much: everyone in the world was a child who never grew up, before the box arrived.

"The Three Golden Apples" - The 11th labour of Hercules, wherein the king sent him to fetch the apples of the Hesperides. The tale begins with Hercules meeting a band of nymphs, who hear his account (only briefly summarized, alas) of his preceding labours before directing him to the one person who can direct him to the garden: the Old Man of the Sea...

"The Miraculous Pitcher" - Philemon and his wife Bauchis have grown old together - the only kindly folk living for a good way around a prosperous village, whose inhabitants delight in tormenting vagabonds (although they'll fawn on wealthy-looking strangers). Then one day a ragged youth called Quicksilver and a taciturn man with an appearance of great wisdom are driven out of the village...

"The Chimaera" - Bellerophon's pursuit of Pegasus, whom he seeks because only in the air does he have a chance of killing the monstrous chimaera. Bellerophon's long wait beside the fountain of Pirene, where Pegasus descends to drink, is enlivened by several characters living round about: an old man who can't even remember his glory days, an overly timid maiden who'd run from anything unusual, a yokel who only appreciates plowhorses, and a little boy (the only one who really believes in Pegasus).

Hawthorne's gentle, charming collection of classic myths retold for the children of his day is a neglected classic. Addressing the reader in personable Victorian fashion, his prose is clear and beautiful. Consider this sample:

"Within the verge of the wood there were columbines, looking more pale than red, because they were so modest, and had thought proper to seclude themselves too anxiously from the sun. There were wild geraniums, too, and a thousand white blossoms of the strawberry. The trailing arbutus was not yet quite out of bloom; but it hid its precious flowers under the last year's withered forest-leaves, as carefully as a mother-bird hides its little young ones."

But Hawthorne is also equal to the task of less genteel, more vigorous images:

"At this sound the three heads reared themselves erect, and belched out great flashes of flame. Before Bellerophon had time to consider what to do next, the monster flung itself out of the cavern and sprung straight toward him, with its immense claws extended, and its snaky tail twisting itself venomously behind."

Adding to the pleasure of these retold tales is the gorgeous art of Arthur Rackham, both in black-and-white drawings and full-color plates, which captures the unearthly beauty and the unexpectedly surprising humor of Hawthorne's work. Highly recommended!

One day last week, I could not, even after hours of deliberation (the snow had made engagements scarce), decide what book to read next. I finally came upon this little volume on the end of my parent's bookshelf and decided to give it try. How could I have known what charms were in store? I felt like a little girl again, and as Eustace Bright, the ambitious college student who narrates these tales, held his little auditors in awe, my eyes, too, were wide with wonder. It truly is a "wonder book," full of high fantasy, thrilling action, and the inimitable imagery of a master. Though geared towards "boys and girls," Hawthorne explains in his introduction that "children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple . . . It is only the artificial and complex that bewilder them." Indeed; the book hardly condescends, and so will gently stretch the middle-grader's vocabulary. But readers -- or listeners -- of all ages will delight in this collection of tales, for I was equally, if not more, entertained by the introductories and postludes to each story, which relate the antics and dialogue of Eustace and the little children he entertains. These interludes also expand the stories by slipping in commentary and interpretation.

Don't pass this one by; it will truly win your heart, whoever you may be!

My 7 year old really liked this, and more generally this whole Landmark series is very good for young readers. Vocabulary and sentence structure are age appropriate. Content is good solid history. As opposed to much of the stuff for this age which is "silly" reading, this series lets them learn something while improving their reading skills.

This work, for the young reader, is an excellent additon to one of the best series for young people over the past fifty years. This is the story of the Wright Brothers, from their early childhood through the time of their invention of the "flying machine." It does stress the influence their parents, particularly their mother, had upon them. It is simply written and very direct. The story is quite easy to follow and gives the young reader a very good insight to the minds and work ethic these brothers had. It is an excellent introduction to the subject of flight. Overall the book is quite inspirational. I can remember reading it as a child (mid-fifties) and am quite gratified to see my grandsons read it today. Recommend quite highly.

This book was easy to read and helped me gain an understanding of the Wright brothers and the influence their mother had on their lives as well as their accomplishments and what drove them to invent, and invent, and invent! Not only did it provide a good review of their acccomplishments, but it also provided inspiration to my 11 year old daughter. These men had a can do attitude and never gave up. I recommend this book for anyone who wants knowlege of the Wright brothers, and inspiration to always keep trying.

A book that truly describes what happened to the Wright Brothers. It tells of how they went from almost nothing to building arplanes. It tells how they worked to build the airplane, and always wanted to build one. Recomended for anyone who wants to know more about Orville Wright and Wilbur, and wants to read a good book