BOOK REVIEW

by Papa

Title: The Sword of Shannara

Author: Terry Brooks

Recommended Age: 10-14

Pages: 726

Read-Aloud Time: About 6 months

(20 minutes a day)

Rating: 4/10

I had read The Sword of Shannara for the first time when I was 10 years old and I absolutely loved it.  I had read The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Rings, but I actually found The Lord of the Rings trilogy a bit boring at times - especially when they started singing songs.  Anyway, I had never really noticed a parallel between The Lord of the Rings and The Sword of Shannara until I read it to Kid A this year.  It's pretty much The Lord of the Rings For Dummies.  Shea and Flick are Frodo and Samwise.  Allanon is Gandalf.  Balinor is Aragorn.  Hendel is Gimli.  And Menion and the Elf brothers are kind of combined to be Legolas.  There's even a psychotic gnome named Orl Fane who is Gollum.

It's not merely that the story is a copy of another story that leads to a low rating.  I just thought the writing was really bad.  The author recounts the events that have already happened numerous times.  A character will separate from the group for one reason or another and then there will be page after page of that character thinking back to what got them there even though we just read the details a couple of chapters earlier.  And it's incredibly long and dense with words.  Instead of just saying "Menion" or "he", the author chooses these other aliases for the characters that are longer than their original names, like "Highlander" and "Prince of Leah".  The aliases are then mixed in as if on a find and replace in random order.  Eventually, while reading it aloud, I would just say "he" instead of the alias.  It worked just as well.

Favorite Thing:  There's an awesome map at the beginning of the book.  I know that this is just like The Lord of the Rings too, but we kept referring to this map throughout the book to see where the characters were and where they were headed.

Least Favorite Thing:  There was only one female character in the entire book, Shirl Ravenlock.  I mean, the book is 726 pages long and there's only one girl mentioned?  It just doesn't make any sense.

Questionable Material for Kids:  There are lots of battles and fights where people or creatures die.  A couple of the main characters even die.  Some of the scenes will probably be a bit scary for young kids.