The Hero

Rating:
Summary: Hold on to your seat for a wild ride
Review: Fourteen-year-old Jamie West can hardly wait to gather wood for the raft he is building with his cousin Jerry. When weeding the garden takes too long, Jamie decides to set the weeds on fire. He hasn't counted on the speed dry grasses burn, however, and soon the blaze is beyond his control. Jamie realizes only water will halt the fire, and he cuts the ditch bank, flooding the area and dousing the flames. Nothing could be more frightening, Jamie decides, before he and Jerry are stranded on the raft in the middle of the Payette River with Dennis Leeper, a neighborhood boy whom everyone tries to avoid. Their situation doesn't seem too bad, until they go over the first dam and lose Jerry from the raft. Hold on to your seat for a wild ride, which leads Jamie to discover what it takes to be a hero and a man. I'm using this as a read aloud for an 8th grade English class and they are loving it!

Rating:
Summary: Good Literature Leaves Some Questions Unanswered
Review: From the very beginning, Woods creates a great mix of interesting plot and innovative language that makes this book hard to put down. The plot keeps the young reader in suspense, the creative similes and folk sayings keep the literary critic half-smiling, and the moral dilemmas (another source of suspense) keep the philosopher/ethicist musing.
Jamie's troubles begin when he is stuck between his bossy cousin Jerry and the lonesome Dennis who gets teased by all the other kids. Jamie's conscience (and his mother) won't let him really enjoy being a tease or a bully, but he doesn't want to completely defend Dennis for fear of being picked on himself.
In the mean time, the reader gets to know Jamie's neighbors, old and young, by hearing fascinating micro-stories of things they have done. The river, the mountains, and even the sky become familiar, and the writing wraps you up in the slow but steady pace of small town life. Jamie never hurries to tell you his story, but it is exciting nonetheless. Good stories take time to tell.
In the final scenes of the book, the boys lose control of their raft and float down the silent river toward the roaring dam. Their capsizing and the different reactions in the community are hauntingly real, and readers are compelled to ask themselves not only, "What would I have done?" but also, "What would I do to save a life?" Those questions were in the back of my mind for a long time after I finished the last page.
This book may well become a regular part of high school literature classes, because of the debates that may arise by asking the above questions and others like, "Which boy is the real Hero? -or are all three of them?"

Rating:
Summary: The Hero
Review: I think it is a relly exciting book. I also think is relly emotinal. My favorite part in the book is when they are stuck on the raft and the the rope is caught on the dam. I think it is one of the best books I have ever read. When his next book comes out I am going to buy it. I think people of all ages would like it

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Rating:
Summary: The Hero
Review: The Hero is a very well written book with a lot of insight into each of the characters. The book gives great, vivid images of the scenery. Mr. Woods writes in a very regionalistic standpoint. He shows what Southern Idaho was like back in the mid 50's. He defines the characters in such a way that it relates to probably most people. This book is more focused towards teenagers, more than adults, but I still think that many adults would enjoy it. The storyline is very interesting and very involved. It moves along at a pretty moderate pace, not too fast, not too slow. There are also many surprises that will jump out at you as you read this book. Adventure and suspense is what this book is about. For those of you out there that like those things I would definitely check this book out.

Rating:
Summary: Adventurous and Full of Surprises
Review: The Hero is a very well written book with a lot of insight into each of the characters. The book gives great, vivid images of the scenery. Mr. Woods writes in a very regionalistic standpoint. He shows what Southern Idaho was like back in the mid 50's. He defines the characters in such a way that it relates to probably most people. This book is more focused towards teenagers, more than adults, but I still think that many adults would enjoy it. The storyline is very interesting and very involved. It moves along at a pretty moderate pace, not too fast, not too slow. There are also many surprises that will jump out at you as you read this book. Adventure and suspense is what this book is about. For those of you out there that like those things I would definitely check this book out.

Rating:
Summary: unsung rapids
Review: The Hero, written by Ron Woods is a story about a fourteen-year- old boy named Jamie. This story takes place in 1957, and begins during a long and hot summer's day. Jamie, who has been asked by his mother to tend to the weeds near the garden, soon becomes bored with the old method of hoeing up weeds and conspires the notion to set the weeds on fire. Little did Jamie know, that the fire would spread out of his control,causing his mom to have to help him put the fire out with a wet, saturated old blanket. Luckily, he and his mom eventually put the fire out before it burns down the neighbor's fence. This was an extremely horrifying experience for Jamie, and it leads the reader to think, what destracted Jamie from not tending to the fire promptly? He was daydreaming. A dream about building a raft with his friend Jerry and then rafting down the Payette river in Idaho. After dealing with the consequences of the fire, Jamie and his friend Jerry built a raft, and launched it down the river. Since this was their first attempt at taking on the rolling rapids and swift water, they decided to take a test run, so they invited, pimple face Dennis, who nobody really cared for, to go along with them on the trip. They put their raft in the water, then headed down stream, little did they know that after the first dam, and dumping Jerry off of the raft that this trip was long from over. This story is a life lesson summarized with words, but felt by everyone who reads it.