4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
silly fun for kids, October 30, 2005
Hey, this is not rocket science...
Unless you consider Si and Meese...
Warning, this review is written by an adult, and I had great fun reading the book. So, if you have children who read, let them read this book. It is fun, it is silly, it is good. So, let your child read the book. If they do, they will find out that family is best, even if she is an older sister, and that parents are important. Oh, and, the younger brother ...well... he should have had more parental and sisterly guidance, but he did the job.
Congrats to younger brothers everywhere.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Honey! I Created Living French Fries!, June 3, 2005
Young Freddy Funkhouser is having problems. First, his father, Alfred, a genius inventor, can't seem to make any of his inventions work well enough to make the family money. Second, his older sister, Nancy, loves to spout lines from Shakespeare and TV shows to anyone who will listen, hoping that her acting career will take off. How embarrassing!
Freddy is trying to help break his family out of their obscure rut by building an award winning float for the Pookesville Founder's Day Parade. If he can do it, perhaps their floundering family restaurant - that offers healthy food compared to the burger stand across the street owned by the Spanker family - might take off. A large task considering the Spankers ALWAYS win the float contest. But if Freddy has anything to say about it, they won't win this year! With the aid of Howie Kapowie, his one and only friend in town who seems solely to care about eating cheese cubes, they have very little chance. And with Adam Spanker (the town hooligan) always on their heels, things look even bleaker.
Can Freddy do it?
Not on his own. And he knows it. So he rigs up a contraption of nanotechnology mixed with super-secret potatoes, and an interesting accident occurs. When lightning strikes the potatoes, they turn into living, breathing, talking ...uh ...spuds. Fries alive! And now with Theodore, Wally, Curly, Si, and Meese, the town of Pookesville is in for an amazing surprise ...and so is the rival Spanker family. Can a misfit family use its brains to beat the brawn of the town?
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David Baldacci is normally known for his crime novels (Absolute Power, Hour Game, and the less enjoyable Split Second), but here he's dunked his hand into the children's literature cookie jar, perhaps hoping to come up with some tasty new treat for readers.
But no ...
Like so many other children's books and films, 'Freddy and the French Fries' treads over old themes and tries to put on a new face. Ever seen the film 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids'? If you have, you will undoubtedly see parallels to it in this book (i.e., a genius father, a smart family that's stunted because of their intellect, absurd obstacles that need to be overcome by using technology, and, in the end, triumph).
That being said, this book will probably appeal to the preteen because of its fast pace, outrageous names (Howie Kapowie, Patty Cakes, Nanny Boo-Boo, etc.), and its action scenes.
There's also some learning that takes place that will obviously make parents happy. Such as knowing the proper term for siamese twins (conjoined); the advantages - and disadvantages - of eating soy products rather than hamburgers; how to beat a bully using your brains and not your fists; and a very basic understanding of how nanotechnology might benefit us.
All in all I think this book's chapters might be enjoyed by kids at bedtime, but don't expect much originality.
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