Rating: 
Summary: And Just What IS Reality?
Review: Amy was in Central Park skating with her best friend when she spotted him. Kevin Malone was a bully from Amy's childhood. She followed him into a tunnel and straight into the world of the Fayre Farre. Kevin had not just run away from an abusive father all those years ago. Instead, Kevin MADE Fayre Farre and disappeared from reality into his own world. A world as real as Amy's.
But Fayre Farre has changed since Kevin's childhood. Now it is in dire need of a hero...him, of course. However, it seems Amy and two of her girl friends are part of Kevin's prophacy too. Only with their help can Fayre Farre be saved. But in order to save his world, Amy must first save Kevin...and she does not even like him.
***Oh, it was so much fun to read this one! It brought back memories of how much I loved Young Adult books when I was twelve and up. In fact, I decided to keep this fantasy always. (*wicked grin*) Teenage ladies will love this one!!!***
Rating: 
Summary: The Kingdom Of Kevin Malone
Review: Had I had this novel available when I was working with "Distressed's" counterparts and teaching English some years ago, I would have been a happy camper! This little jewel of a novel makes a believably realistic case for the role that well-written and highly perceptive fantasy can play in helping teens deal with very real problems of death, loss, abuse and separation. Amy, trying to cope with the death of a much-loved cousin escapes by magic into a fantasy kingdom created by a former childhood bully. She rescues him and learns a much-needed lesson in tolerance and understanding while doing so. The issues are real; the fantasy aspects, extraordinarily well-conceived; and it seems to me that Ms. Charnas has done an absolutely superb job of helping teens "walk in another's moccasins" to see and gain valuable insight into real-life problems. As an adult, I loved this book! And I've shared it with young friends of "Distressed's" age who found it equally meaningful. I'm delighted to see it back in print for all ages to read and ENJOY!
Rating:
Summary: Disagree strongly with "Distressed Teenager's" pan...why??
Review: Had I had this novel available when I was working with "Distressed's" counterparts and teaching English some years ago, I would have been a happy camper! This little jewel of a novel makes a believably realistic case for the role that well-written and highly perceptive fantasy can play in helping teens deal with very real problems of death, loss, abuse and separation. Amy, trying to cope with the death of a much-loved cousin escapes by magic into a fantasy kingdom created by a former childhood bully. She rescues him and learns a much-needed lesson in tolerance and understanding while doing so. The issues are real; the fantasy aspects, extraordinarily well-conceived; and it seems to me that Ms. Charnas has done an absolutely superb job of helping teens "walk in another's moccasins" to see and gain valuable insight into real-life problems. As an adult, I loved this book! And I've shared it with young friends of "Distressed's" age who found it equally meaningful. I'm delighted to see it back in print for all ages to read and ENJOY!
Rating: 
Summary: AAARRRGGGHHH!
Review: I am a distressed teenager. I just wasted a whole lot of money on this pathetic book! DOn't buy it! First of all, it's complatetly unrealistic. Second, it's boring. I mean, this kind of fantasy is the most common: kid goes into magic world, kid saves magic world, author struggles to make the character real and with some faults, but ends up destroying the whole thing. If you're a pre-teen or teenager, beware. I nearly died of boredom. The only reason I still have this book is because I paid six bucks for it.
Rating:
Summary: The Kingdom Of Kevin Malone
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It has a great plot and I love all the elves and other creatures. A really great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Imagining your enemy
Review: Once upon a time I lived on West 83rd Street in Manhattan, and down at the end of my block, in a ratty old brownstone, lived a family of rough, poor, mean
Irish kids who used to make life hell for us "rich" kids from mid-block.Of course we weren't rich -- far from it; my mom was a divorced woman at a time when divorce was not common, and she was raising a couple of daughters on her own on her earnings as a free-lance artist in the textile design business. But we were certainly *rich-ER* and oh my, did we pay for it! Now, years later, I have come to wonder about the lives of those "corner kids," and KEVIN is the result of that meditation, as well as the kind of response that it is only given to writers to make. I wrote a book about being the girl I was, and finding out something about the life of the chief bully of the corner clan, and both knowing and being known by him in a different relationship than that of angry predator and equally angry victim.
So in THE KINGDOM OF KEVIN MALONE I imagined the bully with a name and a background and an imagination of his own that is bigger than the world, and a need for escape just as big. Out of that came a fantasy about fantasy, an adventure in the world of book-inspired invention that I hope the real corner kids found as I found it (for I had my own sorrows to escape, as all kids do). And as always, I meant to give some indication, for all the non-New Yorkers who commiserate with me for my having grown up in Manhattan as if I had grown up in hell, of what a heaven of possibility and riches that great city was for me as a child.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but not as original as others
Review: Suzy McKee Charnas is better known for her adult fiction and non-fiction (she is the author of _The Verbal Art of Self-Defense_). I picked this book up for a buck and thought, what could I lose? The better question may have been, for a buck, what could I gain? That's not to say that this novel is bad. Charnas is too much of a professional to have written a *bad* book. And there are some little twists to the genre that she nicely pulls off. But, on the whole, it's rather unimaginative. The protagonist is a girl whose favorite aunt has just died, and she's quite bummed about it. So when she finds herself slipping into another world from Central Park, she is skeptical--especially since the hero of this other world is Kevin Malone, a bully who used to pick on her. As I said, not a bad book. There's your typical walking skeletons, and the little people, and the quests. But there's also a more gritty, personal nature to the protagonist. I'm not sure it is altogether successful, but it was at least interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not as original as others
Review: Suzy McKee Charnas is better known for her adult fiction and non-fiction (she is the author of _The Verbal Art of Self-Defense_). I picked this book up for a buck and thought, what could I lose? The better question may have been, for a buck, what could I gain? That's not to say that this novel is bad. Charnas is too much of a professional to have written a *bad* book. And there are some little twists to the genre that she nicely pulls off. But, on the whole, it's rather unimaginative. The protagonist is a girl whose favorite aunt has just died, and she's quite bummed about it. So when she finds herself slipping into another world from Central Park, she is skeptical--especially since the hero of this other world is Kevin Malone, a bully who used to pick on her. As I said, not a bad book. There's your typical walking skeletons, and the little people, and the quests. But there's also a more gritty, personal nature to the protagonist. I'm not sure it is altogether successful, but it was at least interesting.
Rating:
Summary: SUSPENSEFUL and full of EXCITING things at its VERY BEST!!!
Review: This book was awesome! I could hardly wait to start reading it again after I went to school or had do something. I encourage everyone to buy and read this book. Believe me,it's on my top favorite list!! So,don't waste any time in reading this delightful,enchanting,engrossing fantasy book!!
Rating:
Summary: I Wonder
Review: This book was really good. I wonder what the creatures that Kevin created looked like. And I would definately buy the sequel. If there is going to be one.
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