
THE BOOK OF NONSENSE by David Michael Slater Category: Fantasy Age Recommendation: Grades 6+ Release Date: 10/14/08 Publisher: Blooming Tree Books/CBAY Reviewed by: Marta Morrison Rating: 5 Stars Words have power! Every writer and reader knows this and that is why they surround themselves with words. Daphna and Dexter are twelve-year-old twins. On the eve of their thirteenth birthday, all heck breaks loose. Daphna has found an interesting bookstore the summer that her father has been gone looking for rare books. Their mother is dead. When she brings her father to that bookshop strange things start to happen. The owner, a wizened old blind man, has affected her father, and her father has promised the owner that Daphna will work for him starting the next day, her birthday. Dexter, who doesn't like his sister, follows Daphna to the bookshop and figures out that the old man is hypnotizing her. Daphna and Dexter then have to figure out together the mystery and save both of their lives. I enjoyed this story and will be waiting to read the next one. Daphna and Dexter are well-written and easy to root for. I really enjoyed the fact that the author has written about dyslexia. My oldest daughter has light dyslexia, which is how the author described Dexter's condition. Words move on the page and fall off. Many people are ignorant about this disorder. They believe that if you are dyslexic then you only see letters and numbers backwards. My daughter's dyslexia is hard to treat, and even though she wears glasses that seem to keep the letters on the page, she has had a hard time catching up with her peers because of very ignorant teachers and administrators. So thank you, Mr. Slater, for bringing that disorder to the surface. I will definitely be looking forward to the next installment of the SACRED BOOKS series. |