Scan barcode
A review by finesilkflower
The Bell Bandit by Jacqueline Davies
3.0
Wow, this was a lot heavier than the previous two books. [b:The Lemonade War|1258121|The Lemonade War|Jacqueline Davies|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347342013s/1258121.jpg|1246936] and [b:The Lemonade Crime|8725909|The Lemonade Crime|Jacqueline Davies|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349053084s/8725909.jpg|13598873] both dealt with some fairly complex emotions, but they had an overall can-do attitude, whereas this one is more about resignation with the sucky way that life is, as the children visit a grandma with dementia who can no longer reliably recognize them, make an autistic friend, and meet some legit scary neighborhood boys who torture animals. I'm just saying, reading it as a light palate-cleanser to after yet another tearful episode of "Call the Midwife" was a mistake: this volume has such a similar tone of downbeat, minor-chord, bittersweetness that I could hear the "piano theme for baby with spina bifida" in the background as I read it. The general life lessons are "some problems have no solution" and "this is the way things are now."
I'm not necessarily complaining, mind you. Not all books can be light and fluffy, and books which depict difficult situations can play an important role for children who have faced similar situations and need help making sense of it and for helping to develop empathy in others.
That said, while I respect this volume, I'm not sure I would want to re-read it. I miss the fun.
Also, this book is lacking in the practical life lessons and word problem puzzles we've come to expect from this series. That's an aspect I really liked in the previous books, which I felt set the series apart in a really cool way: the introduction of practical concepts that children are not usually taught: finance in the first book and law in the second. Although the concepts are complex, they are presented so straightforwardly that they are easy to understand. That is a really strength of the series, but I felt this one could have done more with. It has some vague recurring themes regarding maps, diagrams, and spatial analysis, but it needed to develop it a lot more. It didn't have the definitions and worked examples that the previous books had. Instead, the emotional story expanded and took over the book. Jessie would not approve.
I'm not necessarily complaining, mind you. Not all books can be light and fluffy, and books which depict difficult situations can play an important role for children who have faced similar situations and need help making sense of it and for helping to develop empathy in others.
That said, while I respect this volume, I'm not sure I would want to re-read it. I miss the fun.
Also, this book is lacking in the practical life lessons and word problem puzzles we've come to expect from this series. That's an aspect I really liked in the previous books, which I felt set the series apart in a really cool way: the introduction of practical concepts that children are not usually taught: finance in the first book and law in the second. Although the concepts are complex, they are presented so straightforwardly that they are easy to understand. That is a really strength of the series, but I felt this one could have done more with. It has some vague recurring themes regarding maps, diagrams, and spatial analysis, but it needed to develop it a lot more. It didn't have the definitions and worked examples that the previous books had. Instead, the emotional story expanded and took over the book. Jessie would not approve.