Review of The book of whispers by n j moore

[Josephe-Anne]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The book of whispers by n j moore" by N J Moore.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Enter a land where spirits roam through the woods and animals are noble guardians. This place is called “the Empire” and it exists in The Book of Whispers by N. J. Moore. In this book within a book, ten-year-old Angela discovers the magical tome while helping her grandfather clean his attic. Then the adventure begins. Angela doesn’t know it yet, but she has been chosen as the next Keeper of the Whispers. As she reads the whispers/transcribed stories with her friends and family, she can’t help but notice uncanny situations in her life that seem to mirror the legends in the book. The more Angela learns about the Empire, the more she embraces her destiny as a leader among her peers.

The cover consists of a bright lemon yellow background with drawings scattered all over. The title is printed in a clear black font. This children’s book consists of twenty-five short chapters, and there are illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. The text is written from the third-person perspective of a narrator, and the main themes of the story are nature, fantasy, action, adventure, and friendship. War is mentioned in the text, but there are no violent details.

In addition to Angela, the kind and brave protagonist, there are many other characters in the book. Taisha is Angela’s best friend from school. The girls have a lot in common, and they spend hours playing and reading together. Angela also spends a great deal of time with her loving grandfather. There are also many characters that reside within the Empire, and Angela reads about them in the book. To name just a few, Spirit Lion is a mystical feline who protects and guides the children of the Empire, Herbal Annie is a healer who uses natural remedies to cure the citizens when they are ill, and Leo is a devious villain with green skin and a thick black beard. Whispers were collected about each of these individuals and how their actions affected the Empire.

In an increasingly computerized world, I like the fact that this story encourages young children to develop a love of reading. I also like the way it reminds me of one of my favorite books, The Neverending Story. Like Michael Ende’s classic, this publication describes a link between the real world and the world inside the book. I also noticed that the character named Spirit Lion seemed to be modelled after Aslan from C.S. Lewis’ famous The Chronicles of Narnia series. Like Aslan, Spirit Lion is a wise and benevolent entity who watches over the Empire’s children, and some of them even ride on his back too.

However, there were several aspects that I disliked about this book. First of all, the text is filled with numerous errors, so proper editing is needed. I didn’t particularly like the simplistic artwork, but the pictures may appeal to children because it seems like they were drawn by a child. Also, the writing style was lackluster and plain. The author needs to improve his storytelling skills because there was more telling and not enough showing. The plot seemed disjointed because the subplots were not well-integrated into the overall story. Furthermore, I did not appreciate the greedy, extremely capitalistic ideals presented as many of the stories involved characters selling and trading things for gold. It often appeared that the people of the Empire cared about gold more than anything else, and there was no moral to be gleaned from their obsession.

With all these factors in mind, I have decided to give The Book of Whispers by N. J. Moore a rating of two out of four stars. While I commend the author for his efforts, I felt that there was a lot of room for improvement in terms of execution. He had many brilliant ideas, but his writing style did not do the story justice. Also, another round of editing would reduce the number of errors. If you can overlook these issues, I still believe that this is an interesting book for children who enjoy fantasy fiction.

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The book of whispers by n j moore
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[Kavita Shah]

Great review! I agree that better execution and a more creative story delivery will make it better plus another round of editing. The title is also quite nice like a secret that one is eager to learn about.

[MsH2k]

I didn’t particularly like the simplistic artwork, but the pictures may appeal to children because it seems like they were drawn by a child.

I find it a delicate balance between drawing to attract a child and drawing like a child. Sometimes, simplistic artwork can distract from the reading experience. Thank you for your thorough review and excellent analysis!

[Hannah Mae Fabro]

I think at first, the book is great. But as I continue reading your review, I found out that it has so many negative traits. But your review is great.