Book Review: The Librarian

I accessed Eric Hobbs' book, The Librarian: Book One - Little Boy Lost, for free on Amazon.  I had difficulty with the numerous typos in the book.  It seemed like the author could have used a good editor to clean it up before presenting it to the public.  At one point, instead of the word "taut," it used the word "taught."  Proof again that you cannot rely on spell-checker to proof-read your work.  I feel nit-picky pointing this out because I often read back over my own blog posts and discover overlooked typos.  It can happen, but it seems like when you launch an e-book, you should be more careful to go over everything thoroughly.

The book tells the story of a young middle-school student, Wes, who is regularly bullied by another boy, Randy.  It begins with Randy stealing the boy's story for the short story contest and submitting it as his own.  They enter the halls of an elaborate old library (I loved the descriptions of this!) and await the judging of the head librarian (a person shrouded in mystery).  The library contains intricately carved panels which open into the worlds of various classic books (Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz, etc.).  Wes and his one friend, Taylor, discover a Lost Boy from Neverland and attempt to help him.  At the same time, the head librarian must battle Randy's father, a man determined to tear down the historic library and kill all of the secrets within its walls. 

The story was interesting and engaging.  It kept a good pace and was full of adventure.  Still, the characters were fairly typical (down-trodden nerd, feisty bully, etc.) and the lesson a bit trite (stand up for yourself).  I will be interested to see if my boys like the book.  For myself, I didn't exactly like it enough to want to purchase the second installment, despite the fact that the book ended with a cliff-hanger.  I would give it 3 stars.

I do applaud the author for cleaning up some foul language in the original publication.  It seems several reviewers took issue with the extensive use of four-letter words and the author removed them.  Kudos for listening to the readers.