Summerland

Rating:
Summary: Ok
Review: Good book but if you don't like baseball read Playtrain.

Rating:
Summary: Fairly good
Review: This is a wonderful story in a handful of ways, and the first I have read by Michael Chabon. While it didn't live up to true fantasy fiction and there are many better stories, The Kingdoms and the Elves for a certainty, I enjoyed reading the story. I was impressed at times and do look forward to reading his other books.

Rating:
Summary: An American Narnia; The Best Book I Have Ever Read
Review: Summerland by Michal Chabon is an excelent book and I would advise every reader of 11 years of age and older to read this wounderful and exciting book. This amazing book will take readers to whole new worlds and exciting adventures. Michal Chabon creates a whole new way to look at the universe.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, terrible editing
Review: Many other reviewers have already described the magic and mythology that makes this book so much fun to read. However, I feel compelled to say that it's one of the worst edited books I've ever read. Chabon loves to write convoluted sentences, but there are several strings of extraneous words, such as "of by in." Apparently, such strings were never edited out by a human editor. However, even a good word processing program should have detected such problems. I applaud Chabon for the imaginative story, but the publisher should be ashamed.

Rating:
Summary: trite
Review: trite, reminds me of highschool art class full of earnest drawings attempting to tackle the great subjects- religion, peace, love by using a crucifix, a peace sign, and a heart all in the same picture.

Rating:
Summary: Kinsella for kids!
Review: I have not yet read any of Chabon's books for adults (but they're on my list), but Summerland was a wonderful place to start. It is another fine book in the collection of "for middle-schoolers but just as much for grown-ups" that are (delightfully) sweeping the shelves these days (Harry P, Artemis Fowl, Unfortunate Events, Pullman trilogy, etc). I will not summarize it again (it has been done above and below), but give you another perspective on comparison. Likened by others to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien as well, I find an analogy to W.P. Kinsella for kids to be more apt: its primary themes, baseball and magic (with Indian lore), are the meat and potatoes of Kinsella's novels and short stories. For those unfamiliar with Kinsella (an unfortunate but not uncommon occurrence in the US), all one has to say is: "Field of Dreams" (the movie was based on Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe). If you never read Kinsella but loved Field of Dreams, or are (or were) a kid with baseball in your blood, and are willing to be transported to yet another world (or worlds, actually)---or at least Washington state---you will thoroughly enjoy Summerland.
(I do agree that the editing is wanting in the first edition, but I won't punish the quality of the writing and the story for that. But a new edition does require that someone at the publisher's establishment note the numerous errors and correct them)!

Rating:
Summary: a long road to nowhere
Review: I feel dumb. I didn't know it was a book for kids. I read Summerland and kept waiting for it to get better. It never really did. Contrived, laborious, a time waster that I should have quit -- as my friend did after 30 pages -- but read to the bitter end. I read the Mysteries of Pittsburgh a few years back and enjoyed it, and picked up this book after hearing glowing reviews of The Wonderboys. And I enjoyed that "little" movie they made of Wonderboys. And while the actual language of Summerland was at times beautiful, for 500 pages it was too long and an average story. I'm a lover of baseball, and even that seemed contrived. I feel dumb because I don't get that much reading time, and I feel I wasted valuable hours on this.

Rating:
Summary: a nine year old reader
Review: THis is one of the best books that I have ever read. I like the similarity to the real world, like the baseball parts, but mythical animals, like bigfoot.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably Great!
Review: It is about a kid named Ethan Feld who is a horrible baseball player. Ethan makes friends with a ferisher named Cinquefoil. Cinquefoil is the home run king of three different worlds. Ethan, Cinquefoil, Thor, and Jennifer T. try to defeat the evil Coyote who has taken Ethan's father captive. This is a great magical story of how Ethan Feld beomes a good baseball player...

Rating:
Summary: Great story - TERRIBLE editing
Review: My husband and I started reading this book to each other as a bedtime story once the kids were asleep. Listening is a great way to catch some of the humor (as opposed to just reading it). While the story was clever, & the writing talented... the editing had us stumbling when reading aloud. Will read paperback versions in the future in hopes the editing errors have been fixed.