Summerland (Thorndike Large Print Young Adult Series)

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Very rarely do I complain about a book being too long, since I love reading so much. But this book was such a failure that it was very difficult to get through. Creating convincing fantasy worlds is not easy. These imaginary creatures do not come alive in the imagination. It was hard to even get a visual picture of what type species the author was trying to create. The author might have done better to create fewer characters and improve the depth of the ones that were included. The plot droned on forever and was obscured under layers of ineffectual world-building. Irritating words were coined or appropriated, such as "grammer" meaning "spell". The bumbling father was also an annoying character. If you are looking for anything approaching the greatness of Narnia or even Philip Pullman's trilogy, you will be sorely disappointed. The book is supposedly marketed for young people, but I objected to passages such as: a werefox exposing his private parts and furry behind (page 37), references to characters piloting a boat while having their fly half down (why is that crude remark included), a female character urinating behind a tree (page 336), and frank anatomical terms on page 437. What is the point of these and several other unnecessary and inappropriate passages? Also there are references to cruelties to cats. A parent might want to consider whether they want their children reading these kinds of things. I regret the time I wasted on this book. I had given up on it by the time I was 1/4 finished, but went on hoping it would redeem itself. It didn't. The baseball references were nice, and there was occasional good writing, but certainly not enough to make the book worth reading. I still might attempt one of the author's other books, but can't recommend this one to anyone of any age.

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...