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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
Loved this book when I was little. I can't bring myself to thing of anyone who would hate this book. Such a wonderful story with wonderful characters. 5/5.
This was recommended to me by a woman in line waiting to board an airplane. I hadn't read it before so I thought I'd give it a try. I don't know if I would have liked it any more then as I do know. I thought it was a pretty good book but I don't know that I would read it again.
After having been disappointed by several "classic" children's books, I found myself reading ahead on this one, really enjoying it myself.
Aidan keeps asking if he can get a cupboard for Christmas (six months away) and a key on a red ribbon.
Hopefully the whole series is as good.
I found myself editing the "scalping" bit...I just couldn't bring myself to explain that part of history to my 6 yr old. Not yet.
Aidan keeps asking if he can get a cupboard for Christmas (six months away) and a key on a red ribbon.
Hopefully the whole series is as good.
I found myself editing the "scalping" bit...I just couldn't bring myself to explain that part of history to my 6 yr old. Not yet.
A good book to spark discussions on representation and stereotypes. I do think this book employs stereotypes in an attempt to make the reader think critically about media representations but it is subtle and still falls into some of the same stereotype traps.
This review can also be found on my website.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reason for Reading: At my job at the library, we do book talks every month. For the month of December, we read books that have been turned into movies. This book along with The Neverending Story were my choices.
I've seen and adore the movie. The Indian in the Cupboard is one of those films that brings you back to your childhood. However, I had never read the book. I thought this would be the perfect time to do so.
Omri and Little Bear were just as I remembered (from the film at least). Little Bear was strong, confident, and knew what he wanted. Omri was fascinated but cared for Little Bear, which is not exactly how Patrick was to begin with.
From what I remember of the movie, Patrick did annoy me. His reactions to finding out Little Bear was real and how he treated Omri and Boone rubbed me the wrong way. Reading the book, it was worse. I'm sure the fact that I'm older has something to do it with it as well. Still, Patrick was an annoying little boy and he didn't really respect Omri, Little Bear, or Boone until he got in trouble with the school principal.
The storyline was good. It was a fast read and I enjoyed it. My only complaint was that Boone's dialogue was written with his southern accent. When I had to read his dialogue, it would take some time to decipher what he was trying to say, and it would pull me out of the narrative. Boone speaks a lot, so this happened often. This is the only reason I did not give the book five stars.
I recently found out this book is part of a series, but I don't think I will continue it.
Final Thoughts: Blast from the past, but that accent ruined it.
Reading Dates: December 4-9,2014
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reason for Reading: At my job at the library, we do book talks every month. For the month of December, we read books that have been turned into movies. This book along with The Neverending Story were my choices.
I've seen and adore the movie. The Indian in the Cupboard is one of those films that brings you back to your childhood. However, I had never read the book. I thought this would be the perfect time to do so.
Omri and Little Bear were just as I remembered (from the film at least). Little Bear was strong, confident, and knew what he wanted. Omri was fascinated but cared for Little Bear, which is not exactly how Patrick was to begin with.
From what I remember of the movie, Patrick did annoy me. His reactions to finding out Little Bear was real and how he treated Omri and Boone rubbed me the wrong way. Reading the book, it was worse. I'm sure the fact that I'm older has something to do it with it as well. Still, Patrick was an annoying little boy and he didn't really respect Omri, Little Bear, or Boone until he got in trouble with the school principal.
The storyline was good. It was a fast read and I enjoyed it. My only complaint was that Boone's dialogue was written with his southern accent. When I had to read his dialogue, it would take some time to decipher what he was trying to say, and it would pull me out of the narrative. Boone speaks a lot, so this happened often. This is the only reason I did not give the book five stars.
I recently found out this book is part of a series, but I don't think I will continue it.
Final Thoughts: Blast from the past, but that accent ruined it.
Reading Dates: December 4-9,2014
We read this for our family book club and it brought back wonderful memories of childhood. My kids loved it. During the reading I bought Castle in the Attic, which I loved as well as a child. It's pretty similar.
I remember watching this movie a few years ago and really enjoying it. I didn't know that there is a whole series of books written by this author, so I decided to pick it up and see how good they were. And at least the first one was surprisingly good. I am also surprised by how different it is from the movie though.
First of all- people seem to argue that this book is racist- I feel like they are looking for something that isn't there though. Here is why:
This book is written from POV of a child. Omri is a child that doesn't know all the different tribes and whatnot so therefor he calls Little Bear an Indian. And the reason for Little Bear's broken English isn't because the author thinks that he is worth less than the main characters- it's plainly stated that he came to our world from 2000 or so years back and he only knows a little bit of English because he fought against English people before but his main language is something completely different.
I really liked all the characters in this book, though I feel like Patrick was a little bit too arrogant and bratty at times and didn't really get the punishment he should've gotten for it- but at the same time, he is a kid, kids make mistakes I guess. I loved Boone though- I adored the way he spoke and I loved Little Bear as arrogant and bossy he was at times. He is a chief after all - I also loved that Omri goes from being a careless kid that wants to show off to his friends to slowly learning how dangerous it would be to show Little Bear and Boone to his friends and how he finally realizes that it's important to let them go back to their lives even though it's a hard thing for him to do.
I can't wait to read the other books and see how they compare to this one though. It's a really good book and I feel that there are some really important lessons hidden inside that every child should read and learn.
First of all- people seem to argue that this book is racist- I feel like they are looking for something that isn't there though. Here is why:
This book is written from POV of a child. Omri is a child that doesn't know all the different tribes and whatnot so therefor he calls Little Bear an Indian. And the reason for Little Bear's broken English isn't because the author thinks that he is worth less than the main characters- it's plainly stated that he came to our world from 2000 or so years back and he only knows a little bit of English because he fought against English people before but his main language is something completely different.
I really liked all the characters in this book, though I feel like Patrick was a little bit too arrogant and bratty at times and didn't really get the punishment he should've gotten for it- but at the same time, he is a kid, kids make mistakes I guess. I loved Boone though- I adored the way he spoke and I loved Little Bear as arrogant and bossy he was at times. He is a chief after all - I also loved that Omri goes from being a careless kid that wants to show off to his friends to slowly learning how dangerous it would be to show Little Bear and Boone to his friends and how he finally realizes that it's important to let them go back to their lives even though it's a hard thing for him to do.
I can't wait to read the other books and see how they compare to this one though. It's a really good book and I feel that there are some really important lessons hidden inside that every child should read and learn.
There are definitely some stereotypes that I’d need to debunk with them, but I totally want to read this book with my students this year!
I'm starting to think that "old" books just don't work for me. When I mentioned that I hadn't read this book yet, multiple people recommended it to me. And, if I had been betting money, I would have bet this book would completely work for me. As a kid, 'toys coming to life' was probably my most common fantasy to play out.
And yet this story fell flat for me. Perhaps because it was British, perhaps because it was dated. All these old books always seem to lack something for me, something I can't define better than they're missing a spark -- they seem flat. Maybe it's just a difference in writing styles across decades... I wish I knew.
While I suspect everyone knows what this story was about, in it a boy put a plastic indian into a cupboard, and through some unknown magic, it came to life. I didn't like the boy's character. The indian was a caricature. I didn't like the boy's best friend. And, perhaps worst of all, I didn't believe the parents as real people.
Maybe I was just expecting too much from a book for children... I stopped reading at 47%.
And yet this story fell flat for me. Perhaps because it was British, perhaps because it was dated. All these old books always seem to lack something for me, something I can't define better than they're missing a spark -- they seem flat. Maybe it's just a difference in writing styles across decades... I wish I knew.
While I suspect everyone knows what this story was about, in it a boy put a plastic indian into a cupboard, and through some unknown magic, it came to life. I didn't like the boy's character. The indian was a caricature. I didn't like the boy's best friend. And, perhaps worst of all, I didn't believe the parents as real people.
Maybe I was just expecting too much from a book for children... I stopped reading at 47%.