Reviews

Circles in the Stream by Rachel Roberts

feraltail's review against another edition

3.0

It's a great book for middle schoolers! It's a good length for it to be challenging but not crazy, the characters are good and the writing it fantastic!

khajpaj's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

Rereading a childhood favorite is often disappointing, but not so with this one. A great book for kids.

pancakeddino's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I thought it was a nice easy read

dorouu's review against another edition

Read these when I was a kid and looooveeeed them. :D
Glad I found them again.

shinyfox's review against another edition

3.0

3.5 stars.

A cute book for the younger crowd. I had a few problems with the Veterinary side of things. Basically a mother asking her 12 year old child to get the tranq's needed to put a giant angry wild cat under. What mother would ask their daughter to do that? No matter how helpful she's been in the past. Also after this cat, which is NOT a house cat, is getting better the mother allowed her 12 year old daughter to spend time alone with this wild animal, which was unrestrained. I get the idea of the book. The cat was a very special animal, but no mother would let their young child do something like that. Especially when the animal is incredibly injured and sick.

But overall I enjoyed this book if I overlooked the above issues. It was fun and cute, a quick read to pass the time.

declaired's review against another edition

4.0

I can definitely see why 11 year old me was enamored with these. The new illustrations are gorgeous. Fun for a nostalgia binge!

kyrki's review against another edition

5.0

This is a five star for me not because it's the most fantastical piece of literature I've ever read but because back-in-the-day this was one of my favourite series. I could barely contain myself in between books.

I never finished the series because of the long hiatus and my interest kind of wandered away. BUT, it still holds a very speculz place in ma <3

elisanisly's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Practically speaking, this is not a very well written book. However, I do really really like the world and the idea, so I still enjoyed reading it a lot. My issues with the writing may just have to do with not being the target audience (kids), but it read kind of like the author was imagining it in movie form and I don’t think it translated well. I liked the creative creatures and the different ways the girls related to nature/magic— it was also great that there was a marginal amount of representation through Adriane being Indigenous, however I do think it leaned slightly towards tropes about natives that are probably not ideal (though I actually have no clue if the author is native so that is another thing to consider)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cultural appropriation

kiiitasticbooks's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Back in elementary school, I adored Avalon: Web of Magic. I read all the books. I spent hours outside with my friends, pretending to be our favorite characters from the series.

But sixteen years later, I realized I didn’t remember as much of the series as I wanted to. That, paired with wanting to tab the entire series, had me rereading this book.

Circles In The Stream, the first book in the Avalon: Web of Magic series, introduces us to our three main characters: Emily, Adriane, and Kara. Emily is new in town, the daughter of a veterinarian, and soon finds herself dealing with magical animals when a big cat comes into the clinic with weird, poisonous burns all over its body.

One thing I’ve always really enjoyed in this book is the random pictures. Because we’re dealing with a fantasy world, especially in a children’s book, I think the pictures really help show readers what these creatures look like! There’s something really nice about flipping to a new page and finding a cool picture of the characters doing the exact thing you’re reading about.

I did find throughout rereading this that language has evolved since this series first came out, and some of the terms stated in this book were out of date. For example, Adriane is Native American (the book never seems to specify a tribe), but the book often refers to Native Americans as “Indians”. Because this book was first published in 2001, this can be attributed to a shift in language throughout the years. I can remember us referring to Native Americans as “Indians” during my time in elementary school, and I’m not that old (yet)!

One thing I didn’t enjoy about this reread, however, was the ending. Circles In The Stream ends with the characters safe for now, instead sort of vowing to “deal with the enemy later” and doesn’t feel like a fulfilling read. Most books today have full plots and conflicts, even if they are connected to overarching plots throughout a series, while Circles In The Stream felt more like the beginning to the story. It’s definitely easy to see why kids would want to continue on with the series to read more about these characters!

I’m also not sure how I feel about reading children’s books as an adult, especially in series like Avalon: Web of Magic, where I have a lot of fond memories of reading it as a child. While I do really love this story and these characters, I also found myself bored throughout most of this, and I tend to not enjoy the general writing style of children’s books now. Maybe it’s time for me to move on from this books and keep them only as fond memories…

thelibraryofsarah's review against another edition

4.0

I absolutely loved revisiting this childhood series. There was so much I'd forgotten and even as an adult I thoroughly enjoyed the world, story, and characters. Very imaginative and fun, with some great beginnings of character development! I read the ebook version this time around and thought it was interesting how some things were changed- namely updating technology (CD player to iPod, etc) and changing the girls' ages from 12 to 13. I get why the publishers would want to change these details, but it's weird to me to edit books like this. I did however really enjoy the illustrations that were added to the ebook version. I will note that this book has some outdated parts of its representation of its Native American characters (Adriene and her grandmother) and that Kara uses a slur against Adriene.