Toppsta - Childrens Books – Reviews

It's a classic book and greatly deserves the good reviews it attracts. It gripped my 10 year old son, who goes through stages of avid reading and not wanting to read, but this book really pulled him back into bookworm mode! So much so, that he immediately asked me to order the next three books that follow on from this one from the library.

I have also been trying to move my 6 year old on from picture books and expand his experience of literature, so have been reading him The Indian in the Cupboard. Again, he was absolutely gripped, begging for more chapters each night and he listened intently (which is amazing as he usually loses focus if books don't have pictures). I really credit this book with moving him on to the next stage in reading.

It's well suited for both boys and girls -particularly boys who love a good Cowboy and Indian stand off! But it is much more than than - a story of how  the Cowboy and Indian overcome their personal and cultural differences to become the closest of friends.

It also captures the imagination with magic - the main premise being a magic cupboard which can bring plastic character toys to life. Both boys demanded I seek their old indian and cowboy figures out of the loft once they had read this book - and spent many hours playing with them again. 

We would highly recommend this book and we are now reading the sequels!

Apologies for the delay in writing this book review!

It was interesting to read the other reviewers thoughts on this book before writing this review, as sometimes a book just isn't your cup of tea, and that's not because the book is bad, it's just down to your personal preferences.

We were excited about this book as we are huge Philip Pullman fans and this book had been marketed as Philip Pullman-esq. I think that can sometimes be a marketing mistake, as people are expecting one thing and  this book should be considered in it's own right and on it's own merit.

I'm afraid for my son, he felt very much the same as the review by Muchkin Megan, he just couldn't get into it and did struggle with over description slowing down the pace of the story. I'm afraid that he just couldn't maintain the motivation to finish the story, but he did find elements of the story intriguing.

Thinking that it might just have not been to a boy's taste, I then read it to give a different take on the book. I really, really wanted to enjoy it, but I'm afraid it lost even me about 3/4 of the way through. We did not finish the book, but it's quite possible it might have had a really exciting ending that turned it all around!

However, to be fair to the book, there are reviewers on here that have really loved it and reviewers on Amazon and Love Reading. So I would say don't discount it on reading this review - maybe download a preview/ kindle sample and see if it's for you first.