Official Review: Francis by Katherine Jones

[Melisa Jane]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Francis" by Katherine Jones.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Pets can be a superb source of joy to a family. Sometimes, the family grows so fond of them, that they view and treat them as human beings. When a pet is adopted at a young age, it learns the ways of human beings and may, in some extreme cases, develop human feelings such as love, jealousy, and anger. Francis: A Pet Spider Monkey by Katherine Jones is an interesting children’s book about Francis, a spider monkey that was adopted by Lewis’s mother to her two dear sons, Lewis and Brent.

Lewis, Brent, and their mother visit a pet shop. The two boys spot a young spider monkey and ask the shopkeeper about it. After being briefed on the history and the health records of the monkey, they become very interested in it. They request their mother to buy the pet, a request she easily agrees to. On their way home, they play with the pet and bond with it. At home, their father is equally excited to welcome an extra family member. They feed and accommodate it. How will their experience with a zoo animal be like?

This book has 100 pages. It is divided into 21 chapters. I found its structure very weird. This is because instead of the “table of contents” page appearing before the first page of the novel, it is located on the very last page of the book. I also encountered several blank pages, which I assume we’re designed to accommodate some pictorial illustrations. In short, the book looked incomplete and poorly structured.

The author did a noble job in character development. Francis is portrayed as a very smart pet that finds it very easy to adapt to human life. This made it very likable. The author also accompanies the storyline with multiple details and lessons about different species of monkeys. I enjoyed the adequately researched history and features of both the old and the new species of the spider monkeys.

There are several things I didn’t like about this book. As mentioned earlier, its structure wasn’t likable at all. For a children’s book, the sentences were way too long and confusing, especially considering that most of them were not properly punctuated. The following is an example of such awkwardly structured sentences:

Earlier when inside the pet store watching and playing with the monkey the store owner tells Lewis and Brent the little monkey is about six months old and came from South America and he has had all of his shots and is healthy.

As you can see, the sentence is too long and not well punctuated. I found at least ten grammatical errors within the first ten pages of my reading. This means that this book was poorly edited.

Considering the above likes and dislikes, I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. I recommend it to children above the age of twelve. This is because of the complex sentence structures and the vast historical contents of this book. People who hate poorly structured books may not enjoy reading it.

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Francis
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[Leen282]

Too bad about the poor editing, I like the idea of the story. Hopefully the author can address the issues.

[Samgum50]

It seems like the book needs to be further improved for it to be great. Nice review!

[ANVO]

This book must really need another round of editing. But the story line seems intriguing. Nice review.

[Standor5865]

It's sad that the book couldn't live up to it's potential due to its poor execution. The story doesn't seem bad though.

[Elvis Best]

I like the concept of this book. I'm rather disappointed that the author couldn't execute properly. The idea of a pet spider monkey sounds fun and exciting to me.

[Nedbrian]

I have aversion for monkeys and this book review sure did get me having goosebumps as I pictured how this family lived and loved a monkey. Phew, that must be quite irksome to achieve.