Sammer and Michael Tell Us About More Terrific Books!

Fall greetings, reader guys. The cool-weather, falling leaves,watching-football season officially arrived around

4:00 pm last Sunday--and the Carolina Panthers actually won a game!

 The Iron Guy thinks it's a great time to grab a chair, a good book and find a place to read either inside (to stay out of the cold) or outside (to enjoy the glorious fall weather). A couple of our old friends think so too. Both Michael and Sammer sent good reviews of some cool-sounding books. We haven't heard from Sammer for a long time, so let's hear him first:

This is my book review on Atlantis Rising. Atlantis Rising was a great book. There are two main characters in this book. Their names are Promi and Atlanta. It starts with Promi, a thief who has great skills with a knife. The leader of the town is a man named Grukarr who has bad intentions. Promi, not knowing anything about Grukarr’s evil plan, wanted to humiliate him in front of a big crowd. He plans on throwing his knife to cut off his belt buckle. He succeeds and becomes Grukarr’s enemy. Atlanta is a girl from the forest outside the city Elligandia where Promi lives. Atlanta is teaching a group of people how to talk to the trees when Grukarr comes through and tells her group to get out of the way so he can pass through. Now Atlanta can do some magic. As the group she was teaching runs away she stays and makes one of the tree branches move and smack Grukarr’s forehead. She then also becomes the enemy of Grukarr. Neither Prani or Atlanta know it yet but Grukarr’s plan involves both of them.This is an action-packed, dramatic adventure with spirits, immortals, faeries, Water gods, and even highly poisonous snails. If you are a fantasy lover like myself, this is a book for you.
From,
Sammer

Thanks, Sammer! I enjoy a good fantasy book, especially when a tree branch whacks the bad guy in the head! Now let's hear from Michael:

N. E. R. D. S., book 5

Attack of the BULLIES

by Michael Buckley
      It's the series finale of  N. E. R. D. S.! Ms. Holiday is now Ms. Information, a new deranged supervillain who has the abilities to copy everything the NERDS have done. She gets together a team of kids in juvenile detention, and puts the US president's daughter in charge of them! She gives them upgrades, and calls them the Brotherhood of Underestimated Liars, Lowlife, and Endangerment to Society: BULLIES. Meanwhile, Heathcliff struggles to regain the team's trust, because he can't remember what happened with the villain virus. Just as the NERDS start gaining on the BULLIES, Ms. Information pulls out a new surprise on them: a time machine! Find out Ms. Holiday's backstory, plus, will Agent Brand return? It's an intriguing, action-packed adventure through time and emotions that will leave you wondering what happens next on every page! ...well, except the last one, of course. As an interesting sidenote, the book shows Ruby Peet's family, what happens if someone receives a double upgrade, and it has not only lots of old game and TV show references, but it has a cameo of Buckley himself! Definitely not a book to miss! 

Michael Lanier

Pianist, guitarist, banjoist, autoharpist, jaw harpist, ukeist, mandolinist 

Thanks to you too, Michael! The N.E.R. D.S. books are really popular with guys and with good reason. I was a little worried because you said N.E.R.D.S. 4 wasn't that good, so I'm glad to see that series get back in shape.

Check these out, guys, and remember, they weren't recommended by some boring old grownup but by a reader guy like YOU! That means these books are:

Or as the boys at last year's Read to Achieve club at Eastover School said:

 

  

Guy Tested--GUY APPROVED!

Sea of Monsters--Is the Movie Better If You Have/Have Not Read the Book?

Greetings, all you fellow reader guys! A couple of weeks ago, the Iron Guy went to Charlotte's annual Yiasou Greek festival. It was a great time, as it always is, and this year I fulfilled a long-term dream and wore my Camp Half-Blood t-shirt there. (It's a long story but I got this t-shirt from Rick Riordan himself!) While I was there, I used a time travel device known only to the Iron Guy and signed up with the ancient Greek army to become the 301st Spartan to go and fight the Persians at Thermopylae. Here you see me with my fellow Spartans:

Yes, indeed, I fit right in, don't I? Notice the soldier to my right--he seems to be in awe of the Iron Guy, who is ready to fight the entire Persian army dressed, not in armor, but simply a t-shirt!!

Enough silliness. The Greek festival and the Camp Half-Blood shirt reminded me of a post I read at This Kid Reviews Books, a great blog run by a reader guy just like you. He wrote a post about the Percy Jackson movies and asked, " Book or Movie--Which One Is Better?" In it, he wrote:

“The book was SO much better than the movie” is a statement I hear a lot. It got me wondering, is the book always better? To me, the answer is an obvious yes, but I’m a book person.
For example, I LOVED the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (Jeff Kinney), but I hated the movie. I think that Gregory’s self-centered character is much better as cartoon in a book than in the movie. In the movie Rowley wasn’t nearly as goofy as he should have been.
 They also took one of my all-time favorite books, The Lightning Thief from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (Rick Riordan), and made it into an okay movie. I mean, they took out Clarisse, one of my favorite characters, and they even took out Ares, the god of war (how do you take out the god of war from a story about Greek mythology with fighting in it?!?). The fight between Percy and Ares has got to be my all-time favorite fight scenes from any book and it wasn’t in the movie. 
Of course, the movie wasn’t horrible. It was pretty good and, I think, for someone who hadn’t read the book, it was probably great. There is lots of action, great special effects, and cool monsters.

He also ran a poll  that asked whether the books were better than the movies. Some said that the books were always better and others took the line that movies are primarily visual experiences and so it's not fair to compare them.

So that got me wondering. I have not seen The Sea of Monsters movie and so I don't know. Is the book or the movie better? Or would the movie have been more fun if you had not read the book first? That's what I thought of The Lightning Thief movie--it was so different from the book that I was disappointed. But then I thought that the movie would have seemed really good to someone who had not read the book.

Soooo--I want YOU to tell ME if you liked the Sea of Monsters movie better than the book. Or if you liked the book better than the movie. Or would the movie have seemed really good if you hadn't read the book first.

And to make it interesting, I'll give you some incentive. The first three guys who write and tell  why or why not the book or movie was better--or if the movie would have better if you had/hadn't read the book first--will get a choice of one these three books.

That's right--you could choose The Indian in the Cupboard, Stone Fox, or Hatchet. All of them are really good guy books. BUT I don't want you to write something like, "Oh, yeah, the book was better." I want you to tell me WHY. Convince me! Make me believe the book or movie was better! OK--you got it? Then go ahead and hit that "Comment" button under this post and give me your reasons. Then I'll publish your comments on this blog. Then you can either come to the Myers Park library and claim your prize or, if you live too far away (even outside of Charlotte), then put your address and contact info with your comments and I'll get your prize to you. Don't worry--your address WON'T get published. No one will see it but me.

So send me your comments, guys! I and all the other reader guys out there are waiting to hear from you.

If you have any more questions on how to send your comments, see the instructions on the left-hand side of the page or call me at 70416-5800.