Customer Reviews

Dreamland Lake

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book 12 years ago and even today it remains one of the more hair raising books I've read. Granted I was probably 12 years old, but it had the whole evil-in-the-woods thing going.

The decayed park has been overgrown by the woods. That is part of the setting of this amazing children's novel that even adults will enjoy. The entire book's tone seems to be affected by the abandoned park, whose glamorous heyday ended several decades before the story takes place.

When I was in in middle school I checked this book out a least 100
times, it was and still is a compelling thriller/comming of age story that holds up extremely well despite it's age (early 70's). There are some mature themes (language, violence, sexual suggestion) but nothing more than say PG-13. The character are so well rounded you and the story so absorbing, you will find yourself comming back to this one many times over as I did. And it has a strong message, sometimes the lessons you learn in life are not always easy ones.. Highly recommended.

I read this novel maybe a half-dozen times in the mid/late '70s. There seems to be a debate recently amongst NPR and WSJ critic types about dark themes in YA/juvenile literature. This book has those themes, but it also has a wealth of understated humor, and a good deal of empathy for the characters.

Peck uses several episodes to illustrate how, yes, death effects us all - the young, the old, the poor, the well-off. If I remember correctly, death comes in the chilling and detached tone of journalistic English, the florid stylings of old-fashioned writers, and in the shock of the first-hand witness (and beware, as our deal old English teachers used to warn us, of the unreliable narrator.)

I don't want to spoil anything, but there is also some penetrating insight into what I would call the delusional personality.

This is a terrible book! I can't believe the author of Ghosts I Have Been and A Long Way From Chicago wrote this thing! Apart from the author's apparent fascination with death, the plot doesn't go anywhere!
DO NOT GET THIS BOOK!It's awful!
The only reason I did not give it zero stars is that there are a few rare moments of humor in it.

DREAM LAND Lake by Richard Peck is a really good book. This is a mystery novel. It's about a mystery man who was found in the woods. Bryan and flip the two main characters of the book.
TRY TO FIND OUT WHO IT IS.
THE MURDERER USES ALL DIFFRIENT CLUES TRYING TO TROW THEM OFF. THEY DON'T WANT TO TELL THE L.A.P.D. SO THEY KEEP TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO IT IS.