Official Review: Ivan and the Silver Seeds

[shannonkate8]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Ivan and the Silver Seeds" by Ivy Lin and Walter Sattazahn.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Ivan the owl is excited when he and his brother, Ryan, are given ten silver seeds from their parents. They are allowed to use the seeds how they see fit. Ivan has big dreams and quickly goes to the store to buy a telescope. Unfortunately for him, the telescope is far beyond his price range — one hundred silver seeds! Saddened, he returns home. He and his father brainstorm different ideas for him to earn more seeds to get his telescope. He uses his time in the summer to do different activities with hopes that he can buy a telescope. Will he be able to earn enough?

When I first started Ivan and the Silver Seeds by Ivy Lin and Walter Sattazahn, I thought it was going in the direction of "The Parable of the Prodigal Son" from the Bible. For instance, Papa Owl gave Ivan and his brother seeds to do with as they would like for the summer. I expected one of them to squander it and follow the well-known tale. Thankfully, I was wrong. I was happy that it went in a different direction. Readers will have to pick up the book to figure out the twists.

Personally, I quite liked the book. It was cute, fun, and showed children that, if you work hard, you can get what you want. I liked that illustrations were on every page. I also liked that readers got to follow Ivan through what he did to get his telescope. We don't just get told he did this or that. Readers are involved.

That said, I did find a few grammatical errors. To me, this is a concern. I generally expect children's books to have minimal errors given their length. While I found this to be a negative, it did seem to be generally proofread by an editor. In addition, another negative was that the book appeared to end abruptly for me. I found myself clicking the next page button on Kindle multiple times before realizing the story was over. In essence, the story was completed, but it seemed to suddenly get cut off in my opinion.

Overall, I have to give this book 4 out of 4 stars. I chose four stars because, as a whole, the book was well structured, engaging, and put forward a good message. There were not enough grammatical errors to warrant me giving the book three stars. In addition, the abrupt ending was a subjective error, and others may not notice it. I would highly recommend this book to parents and children in elementary school.

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Ivan and the Silver Seeds
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

[Zaeda Amrin]

That sounds like a really cute story that would be very beneficial for children to read! The cover is so cute, I hope the book is filled with more illustrations like it. That said, the grammatical errors are quite unfortunate, as well as the abrupt ending. Thanks for the excellent review!

[Kristy Khem]

Apart from the abrupt ending, this story sounds engaging and educational for youngsters. Nice review!

[MarveeAman]

This sounds a fun book for kids, and a cute story like this with illustrations on every page will be helpful for kid to learn something new. Nice review!

[Holly Fleming]

I'm glad to hear that Ivan and the Silver Seeds has a more original plot than simple parables. I look forward to reading this book, errors and all. Thank you for this review.

[GoodLuck ES]

I love that the book teaches children the place of hard work. It's important they learn to be hardworking at such a young age as that will help them immensely going forward in life.

Great review.

[Kavita Shah]

A Good book which helps children learn about hard work and an illustrative one at that. Thank you for a good review.

[Becca Olsson]

Such a cute children’s book idea! Love that it’s seeds and not money to give it a little twist. Thanks for the great review!

[MsH2k]

The cover is adorable! Ivan captured my heart. I hope he had fun and learned a few things on his way to getting his telescope. Thank you for your thorough review.