Monthly Recap - July 2012

Here are the books I reviewed this month:

• Soccernomics
• Sweet Farts #3
• A Dog's Purpose
• Times Table Explorer
• My Granny is a Pirate

 And the books I have on my "to review" list:

My Granny is a Pirate by Val McDermid and Arthur Robins

This book is unsurprisingly about a granny who is a pirate. It is a set of rhymes telling us the pirate antics that she gets up to. For me though it seemed overly long as the author tried to fit in as much pirate references into the book as possible. Only towards the end does it emerge into a story of some sort. And it wasn’t just me who thought it was long; my daughters lost interest when I read it and wandered away.

Also it is a bit repetitive. For example pirate grog features more than once. Also one paragraph of rhyme starts “My granny is a pirate; she sailed the seven seas” and another starts “My granny is a pirate; she sailed the ocean blue,...”

Illustrations though are excellent and my daughters were more interested in pointing things out from the pictures.

So this book is a bit repetitive and overly long for the story it is trying to tell but apart from that it is ok. 

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Times Table Explorer by Dr. Maths

This is a book of 30 quests like the short example on the front where the explorer starts at an X on a map then makes his way across the map to one of the locations upon it dependent on the working out of the multiplication sums. Each answer gives the number of spaces you can move and the direction is given by a compass point at the beginning of the question. After this is complete there is a space to draw a picture relating to the journey (first one is of a boat journey) and also a bonus question to answer.

My daughter is 5 and hasn't done times tables before. We started these and she enjoyed doing them despite not knowing her times tables to start with. Day 2 and she requested that we do more - a sign that she enjoyed it. Also I noticed she'd picked up on what we'd done and was able to do the sums better - she was learning.

The pages can be ripped out of the book, photocopied and used in a classroom situation if required (50 copies permitted). And solutions are in the back of the book too just in case you need them.

We will continue through the book and see how far we can go because later on the times tables will be harder (i.e. higher numbers are used) but I am really happy with it so far. She finds it fun and wants to go back to it each day plus she is improving her times tables knowledge. I can't think how you could make multiplication sums more fun to learn so well done to Dr. Maths for putting this together.

My only negative is that older kids who can easily do times tables might not like this. But for us it is perfect.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

A Dog's Purpose: A Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron

This book is the tale of a dog, except it is more like four tales of a dog all joined together thanks to the use of reincarnation. The first story seemed a bit unimpressive to me, about a dog being born wild, being captured then being kept in a yard with other dogs. Then the story ended and we were introduced into a new world with all the old characters that had been introduced being disregarded and a new dog's life starting.

But this story was better, about the dog and his relationship with a boy. And the dog remembers his previous life. Then onto the next story following another reincarnation, sop more characters discarded. This was another good story with the dog this time being a search and rescue dog, saving lives.

And all the while, although the book is termed as a dog finding his purpose in life, it seems he's got it all worked devoting not a lot of time to what his purpose is.

But the last story comes with a twist because some of the characters from one of the old stories re-appear. And at the end he does realise what his purpose was all along.

So after a slow start the book gets better with some emotional moments along the way. Not just for Christmas.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)

Sweet Farts #3: Blown Away by Raymond Bean

So the author’s bio says that he writes “for kids who claim they don’t like reading.” And that is definitely who this book is aimed for as it is short, taking about an hour to read, simply written and full of fart jokes. This explains how he consistently gets into the top 100 lists for children humour books.

This is the third book in the series. The second book covered the same characters preparing for a science fair and this one follows the characters as another science fair approaches. Despite this the two books are quite different and no prior knowledge of the previous books in the series is required.

In this one the boy Anthony seemed to be a bit more vicious than in the previous one where his interactions were more banter-like. So I didn’t like that but the story whizzed along quickly and he did get some recompense the end. 

I wonder what the next book in the series will be? The boys (and Emma) preparing for yet another science fair? Or something else? Hopefully not.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)

Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

This is a study into the economics of football. For example it looks at the business side of clubs, the relative success of international sides based on their populations, experience and wealth...

There were good things about this book:

• A few stories (i.e. the journalistic bits that presumably Simon Kuper wrote like the write-up of the Ajax and Barcelona academies)
• Interesting findings based on data (e.g. straight away it's mentioned that the inswinging corner to the near-post results in more goals than other corners, also interesting analyses of penalty-takers)
• Good quotes from various sources (e.g. from Jamie Carragher's autobiography)

Then there were a few things I didn't like all that much:

• When the book got bogged down in numbers
• The way the book made numerous comparisons between football and baseball, all because of the success of the book mde film Moneyball, and for a little Englishman like me who knows nothing about baseball that wasn't great
• It's a little out of date, e.g. cites Lyon as a dominant team in France heading towards Champions League success shortly although their fortunes have since changed, a London team not having won the Champions League although they now have, and it mentions how Portsmouth got through their administration period unscathed, however they entered administration again
• The chapters at the end seemed out of order with the Tom Thumb cup being mentioned in a couple of places before the concept was actually introduced leading to confusion
• Some anonymous quotes were used that would have been great had they been attributed to someone.

Overall: not spectacular.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)