I'm a believer that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, so I wasn't going to post a follow-up review on Mountain Cabin Mystery, but something keeps nagging at me. It's not so much this series as much as it is my mistrust of book reviews. I realize everyone has differing opinions, but I have found time and again that marketing and promotion often lead to misleading book reviews. So, for the sake of honesty, I have to put pen to paper here and spill my pent up guts.
Mountain Cabin Mystery, is part of a series called Adventure Books, which is self published and self promoted by the author, Max Elliot Anderson, and is targeted to reluctant reader boys 8-12. If you search the web for books that will get your boys reading, Max Elliot Anderson will pop up. He markets himself, dare I say, shamelessly, as a bored-with-books-kid-turned-adventure-author who now writes exciting books with the type of action, adventure, suspense and humor he couldn't find as a kid.
He claims his adventure books are constantly compared by readers and reviewers to Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Harry Potter, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Star Wars, Tom Swift, Scooby-Doo, Lemony Snicket, and adventure author, Jack London. (He had me at Huck Finn!) These excellent reviews for Adventure Series completely sold me and I now have the whole set in my library.
But they're just collecting dust.
I really wanted to love them, I did. And even more, I wanted my boys to love them. I even passed them to kids in the neighborhood and at my son's book club, but they just didn't catch on. This lack of interest concerned me, but for the sake of a fair review I read 3 of the books in the series, Mountain Cabin Mystery, Newspaper Caper and North Woods Poachers. To be honest, I've had more adventure, suspense and humor in Sunday School.
Sorry, gotta keep it real.
The books were mediocre, sure. What else is new? There are plenty of ho hum books in the world, and kids read them and like them all the time. (Magic Treehouse, for example). The thing that bothers me is the misrepresentation of the calibar of the books. It's highly unlikely that anyone who has ever read Jack London (Call of the Wild flashbacks etched in my brain!) Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (Classic!), or Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys (read them all over and over--okay, I'm starting to sound like a book nerd), would compare these beloved books to the Tweener Press Adventure Series.
So what is my final word on the series?
It's fine, though the moral and educational overtones and undertones are extremely heavy handed and the writing is extremely safe. Even though I personally don't dig it, I do concede there is a place and an audience for this kind of series.
Call me Simon, but these books fall far short of the bold, creative, risky and genuine characters and plotlines of the aforementioned books and simply shouldn't be classified in the same catagory.
Moral of the story: Don't believe everything you read!
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1 comment:
Hello Debbie,
Your blog post popped up in my Google alerts, so naturally, I clicked on it. After reading your comments I felt I had to respond.
First, I appreciate your honesty. Your reactions, and those of your sons and their friends, just prove that no book, or style of writing, is going to be enjoyed by everyone. The same is true of music, movies and other areas of creative expression. But my concern is in how far I missed the mark in your case. You might be surprised to know that yours is the first really negative response I’ve ever had, other than one secular reviewer who didn’t like the spiritual content in TERROR AT WOLF LAKE. In spite of that aspect, he still encouraged people to read it.
In the promotion of my books, I have only included actual quotes from readers, parents, teachers, and reviewers. From those have come the many comparisons to other writers.
Of the books you mentioned, MOUNTAIN CABIN MYSTERY, received the following review: “Max Eliot Anderson's latest book in the Tweener adventure series is Mountain Cabin Mystery. Three friends, Scott, Al, and Benji, get accepted to a wilderness training camp in the Rockies. But this summertime trip into the mountains to learn outdoor survival skills is only the backdrop to a rollicking adventure that climbs up your spine and hangs by its fingertips from the cliff of your skull." Thomas Fortenberry – MIDWEST Book Review
I would encourage you to look through the nearly 50 pages of reviews on a blog that I keep at http://maxbookreviews.blogspot.com Again, I believe your reactions to be valid. But it concerns me that I missed it so badly with the reluctant readers in your family and circle of friends.
Here is the kind of response that I get most often:
“I have found the books to be exciting and desired by our students. The content of these books is excellent, moral, and character building. It is a joy to see our students, especially boys, asking for more!”
“I can't believe it .... as the concerned mother of two struggling readers... who is also the daughter of a children's librarian ... I think I have purchased EVERY book recommended for reluctant readers HOWEVER, they have ALL fallen short UNTIL today. We were able to purchase Newspaper Caper ... and we're hooked!!! Any way to convince you that we need you to write faster?? I can't thank you enough for your efforts.”
“I gave my son (11) a couple of your books for Christmas. He is definitely a reluctant reader...I have to be on his case constantly to get him to read. When he opened the package I could tell he was not too thrilled with getting books until he saw that you wrote them. "Oh, these are THAT guy's books...thanks, Mom!" Later in the day I mentioned to him that I expected him to read the books. He said "You don't have to tell me that, Mom...I want to read them!" As a Mom who is almost never without a book in her hand, it really warmed my heart to see him excited about reading! Thanks, Max! And please, keep them coming!”
“I am not sure if I've ever seen my son so riveted by a book---he was hooked and totally immersed himself in this read! All literature should so make a child soar like this book did!”
“What a great story! I was hooked from page one to the end. It is rare that anything hooks me like that.”
In any case, we’re all different people, and we are touched in different ways. I just wanted you to see that what I say about my books comes from real people, rather than from something I made up in order to hype inferior books. I’ll never write great literature. After all, I did grow up hating to read, so I don’t have that foundation. But my mission is to reach out especially to reluctant reader boys.
Max Elliot Anderson
Mander8813@aol.com
PS. Next month I have a short story coming out in a new book from Darby Creek Publishing. Only 9 stories were selected. I share the pages with Joseph Bruchac, Terry Trueman, David Lubar, CS Perryess, Jamie McEwan, and others. The book is called LAY UPS and LONG SHOTS.
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