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3.2 AVERAGE
3.2 AVERAGE
I wanted to like this book. I really did. Any 12 year old girl who writes a book and gets it published is an inspiration to me and a great motivator to my own students who are the same age as Fan when this book was published. However, the story only slightly held my interest and while Fan is clearly a mature writer for a 12 year old, there were too many inconsistencies with the flow and style of the writing. Perhaps the editors did that by design as a reminder to people that this is, after all, a 12 year old girl, but it was still difficult for me to get past. Of course, another reason I didn't like this story is for the simple fact that fantasy like this is just not my style. I prefer realistic fiction and have really only enjoyed a handful of fantasy stories in my lifetime.
I think the story line was good if not a little cliche. However the grammar was what I had a hard time with. Occasionally it would slip and words were placed incorrectly. However, overall I enjoyed it.
I think the author is great, but I do not think this book is great.
I was tempted to rate this 5 stars on principle, but I felt like I had to be honest. It's a terrible book.
A sufficiently interesting book for the kids. Rather violent, and the kids noticed. "If he is a peacemaker, why does he have a sword, and kill all of the 'bad' birds? "
Written while the author was 10-12 years old, that's pretty impressive.
Written while the author was 10-12 years old, that's pretty impressive.
I’m going to rate this two stars instead of my usual “it was meh, three,” not because I think it was bad, but simply because it think it was underdeveloped.
The author was twelve when this was written (or published) in 2007, and, guessing that the book wasn’t too harshly edited so as to keep her ideas intact, it’s understandable to see where this book can have its faults.
This book is definitely written for a younger audience. My guess would be late elementary school and early middle school? That’s about the years I could see myself picking this up and really enjoying it when I was in school. It’s a short book, barely over 200 pages, and the text size is on the big side, so it’s actually shorter than what it seems. As shorter kids books do, it speeds through the events, sacrificing a more fleshed-out story, which works out fine for younger readers, but might be annoying for older ones.
As a consequence, there’s a lack of details or backstory. These birds can make weapons, soups and pies, and even a fortress. There’s not really any explanation for how they do this, which is a bit sad. I’m not expecting realism, I just would have loved something like a cooking scene or something similar; give me some imagery of them actually using their claws, you know?
There’s also the mix of characters who can’t be killed, and those who just kind of… die. All the sudden. This is common in a lot of children’s media that I’ve seen. Some characters, usually main characters, will be injured repeatedly but not die, seemingly due to luck, while others will die very quickly. These characters who do die usually don’t even have names. Tiny spoiler — the one MC death that occurs, I honestly think they were just killed off for the purpose of refuting that the main characters were invincible.
This book has illustrations! They’re beautifully done, I wish there was more of them. I did have a problem with some of the illustrations repeating, though. For example, one character is introduced, and a illustration of them is included. But later on, in another scene involving that character, the same illustration is used. Having new illustrations with those characters doing whatever is actually happening, instead of reaching past ones, would have been nice.
The book is a little bit Christian aligned, I believe. Most books have some kind of fictional religion involved, but this one particularly seemed to mirror Jesus, with Swordbird being the son of the Great Spirit, who we never actually see. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s obvious and not particularly original, if that’s something you care about.
The bad guy really isn’t that scary. He’s just a big hawk who found and read some book (also: there’s like… religious books?) that is not the ‘good’ book everyone else follows, and has essentially subscribed himself to following this book to a tee the best he can. It’s mostly just told to us that he’s bad, and shown through some over the top moments. He’s really just a coward when it comes down to it.
Not a bad book, but not an excellent one. It would probably be a fun read for kids, but anyone older who picks it up like me probably won’t enjoy it as much.
The author was twelve when this was written (or published) in 2007, and, guessing that the book wasn’t too harshly edited so as to keep her ideas intact, it’s understandable to see where this book can have its faults.
This book is definitely written for a younger audience. My guess would be late elementary school and early middle school? That’s about the years I could see myself picking this up and really enjoying it when I was in school. It’s a short book, barely over 200 pages, and the text size is on the big side, so it’s actually shorter than what it seems. As shorter kids books do, it speeds through the events, sacrificing a more fleshed-out story, which works out fine for younger readers, but might be annoying for older ones.
As a consequence, there’s a lack of details or backstory. These birds can make weapons, soups and pies, and even a fortress. There’s not really any explanation for how they do this, which is a bit sad. I’m not expecting realism, I just would have loved something like a cooking scene or something similar; give me some imagery of them actually using their claws, you know?
There’s also the mix of characters who can’t be killed, and those who just kind of… die. All the sudden. This is common in a lot of children’s media that I’ve seen. Some characters, usually main characters, will be injured repeatedly but not die, seemingly due to luck, while others will die very quickly. These characters who do die usually don’t even have names. Tiny spoiler — the one MC death that occurs, I honestly think they were just killed off for the purpose of refuting that the main characters were invincible.
This book has illustrations! They’re beautifully done, I wish there was more of them. I did have a problem with some of the illustrations repeating, though. For example, one character is introduced, and a illustration of them is included. But later on, in another scene involving that character, the same illustration is used. Having new illustrations with those characters doing whatever is actually happening, instead of reaching past ones, would have been nice.
The book is a little bit Christian aligned, I believe. Most books have some kind of fictional religion involved, but this one particularly seemed to mirror Jesus, with Swordbird being the son of the Great Spirit, who we never actually see. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s obvious and not particularly original, if that’s something you care about.
The bad guy really isn’t that scary. He’s just a big hawk who found and read some book (also: there’s like… religious books?) that is not the ‘good’ book everyone else follows, and has essentially subscribed himself to following this book to a tee the best he can. It’s mostly just told to us that he’s bad, and shown through some over the top moments. He’s really just a coward when it comes down to it.
Not a bad book, but not an excellent one. It would probably be a fun read for kids, but anyone older who picks it up like me probably won’t enjoy it as much.
Honestly, I think Nancy Yi Fan has great potential and should keep writing. This was very well-written and well done for her young age, and I love it that she is such a fan of birds. Taken on its own, though, I found it fairly simplistic -- your basic tale of good and evil, but there's nothing wrong with that. I liked her message of peace and that she pays attention to the world and writes about it.
Hands down the worst Redwall knock-off I've encountered yet.
An impressive bit of storytelling. For my full review: http://winsomegates.jenevivedesroches.com/post/2016/04/26/Swordbird-by-Nancy-Yi-Fan