punchedtoast's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of my absolute favorite childhood reads. A great mixture of historic fiction and adventure for kids 9-12.
sscs's review against another edition
1.0
I didn't finish this one. It was one of those autobiographical books about a super-insightful child.
Robertson Davies sums up the phenomenon thusly: "I have always sneered at autobiographies and memoirs in which the writer appears at the beginning as a charming, knowing little fellow, possessed of insights and perceptions beyond his years. Yet offering these with a false naivete to the reader, as though to say, “What a little wonder I was, but All Boy."
Yeah.
Early in the book, I thought to myself "ok, the childhood part sucks, but this kid has to be like 12 so soon it will get into his teen years and maybe it will improve then."
Then the author lets it drop that the kid is FOUR when he's having all these clever little thoughts so full of amusing insight. I just wasn't up for nine more years of precocity. Maybe it gets better, but I just wasn't waiting around to find out.
Emma Donoghue's "Room" is admittedly the only book I've ever read about a small child that suggested the author actually knew some children and listened to them when they talked. This book is at the opposite extreme.
Robertson Davies sums up the phenomenon thusly: "I have always sneered at autobiographies and memoirs in which the writer appears at the beginning as a charming, knowing little fellow, possessed of insights and perceptions beyond his years. Yet offering these with a false naivete to the reader, as though to say, “What a little wonder I was, but All Boy."
Yeah.
Early in the book, I thought to myself "ok, the childhood part sucks, but this kid has to be like 12 so soon it will get into his teen years and maybe it will improve then."
Then the author lets it drop that the kid is FOUR when he's having all these clever little thoughts so full of amusing insight. I just wasn't up for nine more years of precocity. Maybe it gets better, but I just wasn't waiting around to find out.
Emma Donoghue's "Room" is admittedly the only book I've ever read about a small child that suggested the author actually knew some children and listened to them when they talked. This book is at the opposite extreme.
nomiddlename's review against another edition
4.0
http://nomiddlename.blogspot.com/2008/12/dogland.html
bzedan's review
5.0
It's like Harper Lee and Isabel Allende got together to write something—one building the myth-touched world the other's adult-omniscient, nostalgia narrates.
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