A Door in the Woods (Book One)
A Gift of Ice (Book Two)
by James Dashner
My son read these first and loved them (there are 4 books in the series, but I have only read the first two so far) so I bought them for our school library. The story is compelling and interesting, but the writing isn't great.... in fact, it's rather amateurish. (I was not surprised when I found out these books were the author's first attempt at writing when he deviated from a career in accounting.) I think most kids will overlook that for the value of a story that keeps them turning pages.
However, at times I had to force myself to keep reading. Remember how I said I prefer this kind of story? Well, these books have a serious lack of character development... it's pure action/adventure without the human experience added to the mix, so I found myself rather bored at times and sort of just "skimming." But again, I guess I'm not really the intended audience, so maybe that isn't important.
Like I said, these are pure action/adventure, so naturally they contain some violence, though it's very mild and never graphic. So far there has been no "language" or anything else offensive.
Age Recommendation: 9 and up
(I'm being generous because my son loved the books.) |
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