No one, not even my wife, buys me books as gifts anymore. Sad, but true. I guess I have too many books and no one knows what it is I have or haven’t read yet. Since I’ve been reading like mad lately, I’m on the lookout for the books that are going to be the best gifts for the book lovers on your lists this year. And trust me, I’ve found some good ones!
One of my recent favorites is a children’s book. Other than Harry Potter, I hadn’t spent a lot of time with children’s books over the last few years, but I have recently rediscovered the amazing books that are being written for children and young adults.
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson is one of those books that both children and adults can read and enjoy. When I received my copy, I sat down to read, got caught up in the story, and didn’t sleep, stand up, eat, or go to a library until I was done (I still haven’t gone back to a library- read it; you’ll understand why).
Alcatraz Smedry is a boy who has an amazing power- he breaks nearly anything he touches. His power has caused him to be bounced around from foster home to foster home his entire life. But, on his thirteenth birthday, everything changes. He receives a gift in the mail- a bag of sand, which is promptly stolen. Once he receives (and loses) this gift, nothing will ever be the same. He learns about his family, his powers, and about the cult of evil librarians who suppress truth and spread misinformation in an attempt to control the world.
Alcatraz must infiltrate a library and retrieve the bag of sand, which was stolen by the librarians, before they can use it to achieve world domination. It is up to Alcatraz and a crazily wonderful cast of characters to save the world.
I highly recommend this book for boys between 8 and 13 years old and even more highly to boys between 14 and 99. You can’t go wrong with Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians- just be sure to get it from a bookstore and avoid the library completely.
I have the paperback version of this book. I am completely out of the age range (36) for whom this novel was intended. I was lost from the first page. My initial want for purchasing this book (through my son’s scholastic order form given at school) was to visit other authors besides Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul, James Patterson, etc., and to gain a little more interest in what my son would someday be reading. I wouldn’t even give him this book. He would pick it up, read a couple pages, and then put it back down never to be picked up again.
Was it only in the paperback form that several pages had been repeated? In my book, the page after 188 is 157, and continues to page 188. At first I thought this was a clever joke by Alcatraz to throw the reader off. However, I read through the entire book and found nothing of the sort. Was it a mistake of the author, or a mistake of the printer? Either way, my interest was lost. I may have only paid $4.00 for this book, it was $4.00 wasted on duplicate pages of mindnumbing nothingness.
Maybe this paperback will be worth something after reprints are extinguished after 20 + years.