Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Series Continues On...

A few years ago, my girls came upon Adventures in Odyssey's Imagination Station series of books.  This series is similar to the Magic Treehouse Books.   I haven't read one in quite some time.  A month or two ago, the most recent addition to the series arrived, Captured on the High Seas.  My girls quickly read it and seemed to enjoy it.

Amidst the busyness, I did not get a review posted of this book.  Now that the kids' bedrooms are painted I realize that the time has come to catch up!  So, I'm starting with this book.

The Imagination Station series focuses on cousins Patrick and Beth.  Captured on the High Seas is the second of a 3 adventure series set in the American Revolutionary War.  The first book, The Red Coats are Coming, found them at the battle of Concord.  This book finds Patrick and Beth on an American Ship that is captured by the British.  They become friends with a boy named James.  He helps them and they help him.  It is very dangerous for him to be on the British ship because he will likely be sold as a slave.  The story is all about their attempt to escape.

On the positive side, there's nothing to be concerned about in this book.  It's wholesome and safe.  On the other hand, it's written, well...  As adults we often read books that we can blaze through and are easy to read.  There is no challenge in them or complex description.  These are the books that I describe as "made for tv movies".  That would be a good description for this book.  It is a "made for tv cartoon".  There's simple sentence structure and description.  As I was reading, I often felt like there were jumps that the readers have to make as they read in this book.  

After reading this book, I went to my girls' bedroom and picked up a Magic Treehouse book, a book by Dick King-Smith, and A Capital Mystery by Ron Roy.  I have to admit that of this group of books, the one by Dick King-Smith stands heads above the rest.  As I read excerpts from each of them, I was glad that there are ten Dick King-Smith books on their bookshelves.  I was glad that there are so many good classics on their shelves.  I'm okay with my kids reading the books in their series, but I wouldn't want this series or the Magic Treehouse Books or Ron Roy's books to be all their literary diet consisted of.  It would be like only drinking chocolate milk for food all day.  They need some meat so they can grow strong.  

If your kids have been reading this series of books, I'm sure they'll enjoy this one as they did the others.

Please note that I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from Tyndale Publishing.

No comments: