Official Review: A Curious Boy Named Adrian Ames

[Juliana_Isabella]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "A Curious Boy Named Adrian Ames" by Tori Lyric.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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A Curious Boy Named Adrian Ames by Tori Lyric is a children’s picture book. Adrian is a young boy with a huge imagination! He is the king of Betsy Land, a magical place where jungle gyms can be volcanoes, slides can be beaches, and people are always in need of Adrian’s help. The book follows Adrian on a day of adventures in Betsy Land.

I appreciated this book’s encouragement of children’s imaginations. Adrian has lots of great adventures, and the book shows his family and neighbors taking part. All of the people in Adrian’s city know him as “King Adrian” and invent fun problems for him to solve with his magical powers. Adrian’s dad is also a huge supporter of his game and is shown taking interest and participating in his adventures in Betsy Land.

Another positive aspect of this book is the illustrations. Cristal Baldwin does a wonderful job bringing Adrian’s world to life in the pictures. She shows the city around Adrian but also delves into Betsy Land, helping the reader imagine what Adrian’s kingdom looks like.

My biggest complaint about this book lies in the formatting. I generally read Kindle books on my laptop using the Kindle Cloud Reader. When I did that with this book, the print was extremely small and hard to see. I can’t speak for how it looks on a Kindle, but it did not display well on my laptop. In addition to this issue, I was confused by the formatting of the paragraphs in this book. All of the lines are justified to the center of the page, making them look like lines in a poem. However, the lines do not rhyme or have the rhythm of a poem. Finally, the name “Betsy Land” was never explained in the book, and I would have appreciated some backstory about why Adrian’s kingdom is named this.

Overall, I would rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. I enjoyed the fun story and illustrations and didn’t find any errors in the book. However, due to the issues mentioned above, I didn’t feel that I could give it the highest rating. I would recommend this book to parents of kids ages five to eight, and it would be especially good for those with big imaginations!

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A Curious Boy Named Adrian Ames
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

[mpascal]

I love the idea of a story that encourages children to use their imagination. Many children don't explore that avenue enough, so this is a book I could see myself using in a classroom to encourage students. Thanks for the review and heads up about formatting issues.

[Elvis Best]

Thanks for your honest review. Sounds like a fun children's book. Sorry to hear about the issues you had with the formatting.

[NerdyAsh677]

Thanks for the review and It sounds like a whole community being part in supporting a kid..