Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Fiscal Pear and Shimmer in the Call of River Whale


Fiscal Pear and Shimmer in the Call of River Whale
By Olivia Brooks-Scrivanich
ISBN: 1-4196-9589-4

As a reader I will admit that the title of this book caught my attention and was one of the main reasons that I decided to read this book. It just sounded silly. I kept wondering why the Pear was named Fiscal Pear. (The book does not directly answer this question by the way you just have to ponder it awhile after reading the book.) Now very quickly you realize that this book is not a slick new replica of Harry Potter or some other children’s best seller. It is a book that seems to come from bits and pieces of the Authors everyday life added to a fantasy battle between good and evil.
The characters are very simply written and not a lot of time is spent on character and story development. The writing is clear, concise, and gets to the point. The main thing that came to me as I was reading it was that I would feel completely at ease reading it aloud to a group of kids around the campfire on their first group camp-out. I found myself throughout the story imagining myself being the story teller by the fire passing this cute tale along to giggling, wiggling, 8, 9, and 10 year olds. In this book anything can happen. That is the main thing that I think this book has to offer. The story is not confined to rules. The story shifts to become what it needs to become to reach its destination.
The characters in this book find themselves able to accomplish much more than they had anticipated and that help is available to them if they just seek it out. These are important lessons that everyone needs to learn and remember. If as a reader you are looking for something that is unique and out of the ordinary I think you will find it with this book.

1 comment:

Marie Cloutier said...

Sounds like a really fun read! :-)