Customer Reviews

A Flight of Angels (Lerner Mysteries)

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My niece was required to read this book for a class, and since she was having trouble with it I agreed to read it aloud to her. She claimed that it was a boring book, but as I was a practiced reader from days gone by, and had heard similar incorrect claims from other youngsters, I was sure that the book would be more interesting than she claimed. After all, why would a teacher assign a book that was boring? Surely teachers have a vested interest in piquing the reading interest of their students. Sadly, I found my assumption utterly incorrect.

This book takes interesting, even exciting subjects, and manages to make them dry as toast. I have a passion for both medieval history and mysteries, and this book managed to mangle them both. 30 pages into the book, I found myself longing for it to end. Lest you think this an unfair assesment from an adult reader, I refer myself to C.S. Lewis, who made the statment (which I quite agree with) that there are no "children's books" or "adult's books", only *good* and *bad* books. I've found even picture storybooks made for the 5 and younger crowd to contain a beauty of their own. And I'm sure I could name half a dozen books written for this age group which easily trump A Flight of Angels for interest, entertainment value, and longevity. Leave this one on the shelf, please.

Since Amazon didn't post an editorial review for this book, here is the storyline from the DJ: "Sheila and her classmates don't expect anything out of the ordinary when they choose to focus their class project on the ancient caves beneath their town. But in the cellars of Peblow's shop, where Sheila's father works, the four friends discover a mysterious walled-in archway -- and bump into a present-day problem as well. Will Peblow's have to close? Will Sheila's father lose his job? With the help of a local librarian, the young detectives follow the clues of the mysterious archway back to a 16th-century puzzle. Eventually, they find that the solution to their puzzle is tied to the fate of Peblow's. Reader's will share the excitement as the four detectives discover that events of 400 years ago can seem as exciting as those that are happening today." This story is set in Nottingham, England.