Sam did his homework the other night on my computer so he left his book report on the screen. It was a review of Treasure Island, by Robert Luis Stevenson, entitled "Treasure Island - Overrated and Oversold." Here are some quotes from his report...

"It is vastly overrated and very hard to understand. The plots are confusing, characters ramble, and it is way too descriptive. There are about 10,000 captions in the book which make it very hard to understand."

"The plot of Treasure Island is confusing and boring. It begins with Captain Bill dying...They then arrive at the only exciting part of the book, the mutiny...(Sam describes the mutiny)...I won't give away what happens but it is surprising and boring."

"There were many points in this book when I had no idea what was going on. It seemed like half the book was useless dialog, and other 40% was description. In the beginning, Jim and his mother were searching for the treasure chest and next they were planning the voyage. Twenty pages separated those two events, 19 of which were useless description and dialogue."

The language was not terribly hard to understand but it could use some improvement...I was very annoyed with the phrase 'Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.'"

"Treasure Island was too long, too descriptive, and had too many unimportant events. If this book had been condensed to 175 pages instead of 300, with less dialog and description, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. One example of this is the voyage. It starts on page 81 and ends on page 110. That could have been condensed to ten pages. This book has the potential for a great book, but Robert Luis Stevenson just didn't write this book as good as he could have."

I laughed so hard reading his review. One of the greatest books of all time panned by my son. It reminded me that you can't take your reviews too seriously. It's all through the eyes of the reviewer who may not be your ideal reader. Sam should have enjoyed this book, but I guess it was just too literary for him. Oddly enough, he loves the Harry Potter books, which are full of description and endless dialog. He read my India Fudge book and his comment was, "Mom, you say in 50 words what JK Rowling says in 100. You really need to stretch it out more. You just can't win.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

# posted by Karen Quinn : 10:22 AM