Customer Reviews

The Valley of Secrets

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

about a year ago my sister brought me this book to read saying it sounded good. i read it and it stayed in my mind for quite awhile. just recently i happen to see it in paperback and sent for it from amazon. it is a book that makes you think and wonder if ever someone did bring things home to save them. i would love to live in a big house and acreage and not care for the ugly world our leaders have created. this is a book for people who want to escape to a beautiful place of mystery and nature. children of all ages to 100 years old will enjoy this wonderful sensitive story of a young man finding his place in the world. mysterious animals and an old amazon indian caretaker of secrets. the mysterious moonflower, bugwomps, murra-yari, silkwomps,tigerwomps and other womp mammals that give the setting of a whole new world on an estate behind locked gates. it just took a boy and his inquisitive nature and love and care to make this a delightful book to save through the years for each generation to read. the end pages bring another chapter to stephen's life which would be an interesting sequal. but life is full of mystery and we can just believe stephen's legacy still lives on.

I am a mom and a grandmom and keep up on the kids books to advise at home and at school. This is a story that will hold the imagination, peak interest in animals and plants, and make a person want to be self-sufficient in this world of "instant". The story is funny and exciting and interesting, the animals make you want to have one and children will be mentally stimulated with the underlying facts that aren't painful to absorb. This is an excellent read and a must have.

I have always loved English children's books--when I was a child, I read many of them, and as an adult I continue to return to them from time to time. When I read a review of this book, I knew I had to try it. And it was so satisfying! The very first paragraph of the book is a perfect evocation of the timeless Cornwall countryside. The book combines a strange mystery with the growth of the main character, an exotic trip to the Amazon, and some loveable creatures, all without ever leaving Cornwall. Beautifully written, the story could take place in almost any time in the twentieth century, although there are one or two hints to it's modern time. I absolutely loved this book, and closed it with reluctance. In the ending I fancied I could see the possiblities of a sequel (hint, hint to the author!).

I really liked this book because it is suspenseful, captivating, and mysterious. I would put it in a category with A Wrinkle in Time and Harry Potter. I'm almost ten years old, I read a lot and this is one of my favorite books.

I really wanted to like this book. And to give it credit, it tried very hard to be a well-written book. It just didn't do a very good job of it.

It starts off okay. The chapters are short, which may be good for reluctant readers (we all know how good it feels to read ten chapters, even if those chapters are two pages long). For the first ten chapters or so, the book really isn't TOO bad. The author introduces you to various characters and creatures; sets up background and mystery; and . . . that's about it. It's far too long, and the book would have done well to have been edited. I strongly agree with some of the other readers; it's a long read that takes you nowhere. The plot is not substantial, the characters underdeveloped. My friend and I were reading this at the same time, and we FORCED ourselves to finish the book, simply because we don't like starting books and not finishing them (although I was willing to make this an exception).

The Valley of Secrets has such wonderful potential. The author DOES write very prettily (try reading it out loud; very lyrical), and I think that if she were better focused with her plot, this could have been an extraordinary book.

Unless they stop making children's books, say, tomorrow, I wouldn't recommend this to any child. You might as well give them Joyce's Portrait of an Artist. (They'd probably enjoy it more.)

The Valley of Secrets is a fantastic tale that hides plot twists and exciting discoveries from beginning to end. It's a story about a young boy named Stephen who inherits a giant mansion and an expanse of land around it. The only problem is, if he leaves the property he will violate the will and lose the house, the fortune, and all of his inheritance. While in the mansion, he discovers his Uncle Theodore's journals of fascinating adventures in the Amazon rainforest with his friend Ben and a young Indian boy named Murra Yari, who Stephen later finds out is living in a cave on the far side of his land. Read The Valley of Secrets and watch the story unfold

"The Valley of Secrets" certainly looks like a promising read from the outside, and on the inside it has a story which is both familiar (nondescript English orphan discovers a fantastic destiny elsewhere) and differentiated by virtue of its location in Cornwall and its author's concern with the continuing deforestation of the Amazon basin.

Charmian Hussey certainly has a deft hand when it comes to mixing fantasy and reality, and the book jacket isn't lying when it declares that the pages are suffused with Hussey's love of Cornwall: each of her descriptions of the countryside is precious in and of itself. But love of place and tree-hugging good intentions can only take one so far when one's story is missing believable characters and plagued by the sort of condescending tone and heavy-handed adjectives I was certain had gone out of style after the 1950s, let alone in a post-Harry Potter world. The main character Steven (and if I have to read about his 'poor' hands or 'poor' head one more time I'll chuck the book out the window) seems strangely unemotional, more of a clockwork doll created to advance the story's moral (don't cut down the Amazon rainforest, kiddies!) than a real boy with believeable reactions or feelings. I don't mention Harry Potter by accident, either; I really was very surprised that this book had gotten through a major publishing house after Rowling's success has proven that readers of all ages prefer their life lessons to be served up in a realistic fashion, rather than read out to them by rote as Hussey seems to feel is necessary. I had the best of intentions toward this book, and there certainly is a good story in here somewhere, but after only a few chapters it was like slogging through the mud left behind when it rains on a patch of slashed-and-burned rainforest. There are better ways to teach children about environmentalism than making them read this sort of condescending boilerplate.

What really bugs me about this book is how good it could've been, but wasn't. I started out expecting great things. My dad, who also introduced me to The Boxcar Children, Hank the Cowdog, The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher In the Rye, Lord Of The Flies, The Hobbit, and Frankenstein, all of which I liked and some of which I loved, got this book for me. I was all set out to love it, and I didn't. There were a couple scenes I liked. The death scene was masterful, and the six-person toilet made me giggle, but mostly, this book dissapointed me. The beginning was great, but it seemed like the author started to run out of ideas after that. I went from slowly turning pages, savoring a great story, to feverishly skimming through descriptions and journal entries, checking my watch and wondering when the exciting part would start, to frantically flipping through the last few pages shrieking (in my head) "That's IT!? That CAN'T be it!!"
Annoyance #1: This book seemed like it wasn't finished. Too much time was spent on Stephen reading the journal entries, and not enough time (and by that I mean NO FREAKING TIME AT ALL) was spent on the climax. The journal entry thing could've been done in one chapter.
Annoyance #2: There were basically two characters. I would've really enjoyed it if we could've gotten to know some of Stephen's new neighbors, but, of course, that would mean Stephen would have to enter The Real World, and that, of course, is out of the question.
Annoyance #3: None of the main characters were girls. Since this book was so ladidah flower power sixties type stuffish, I expected there to be a little feminism mixed in here and there. Most stories have at least one strong girl character. Harry Potter had Hermione, Percy Jackson had Annabeth, The Mysterious Benedict Society had Kate and Constance, Incarceron had Claudia, etc., and you'd probably be better off reading one of those excellent books. Most female charecters in this book are Mrs. Whatever the random Cornish housewife. I think Beth was a nice attempt at a sidekick character, but since she appeared three times with one line or less in each scene, that kind of failed. This is also something the book should've devoted more time to.
Annoyance #4: This book is a poorly disguised environmental textbook. Before I read this book, The Final Warning by James Patterson really annoyed me, but now I really like it. If you want a lecture on saving the environment, I reccomend reading a more entertaining book, such as Emma Clayton's The Roar or James Patterson's Maximum Ride.
Annoyance #5: The characters seemed like bad spoofs of what they were supposed to be. When I was younger, my music teacher forced us to watch a video featuring an opera version of Hansel and Gretal acted out by claymation puppets. Hansel and the stepfather huffed, gruffed, and acted tough, Gretal and the stepmother weeped, wailed, and bemoaned, and everyone's voice was annoyingly high-pitched. That's kind of what this book felt like.
I used to brag that I like every book I've ever read. I'm sorry to say that I can no longer say that. I reccomend that you get this book at the library, read the delicious beggining, then find a summary online instead of suffering through the rest of the "story".

Knowing nothing of this book, but being intrigued by the cover, my wife and I picked up the audiobook to listen to while on vacation. We drove across three states wondering if there really was going to be a plot. This book is really for those who like to hear extended descriptions that will continue for pages. Imagine all the chapters from Les Miserables that describe the Battle of Waterloo, the sewer system, and the convent. Well, take all those detailed and monotonous chapters, throw in a wandering child and you have the book. Discovery of a fascinating place with not a lot of story. Sorry, but I had to say it.

I WANTED to like this story ~ I really did!! Loved the premise, the setting, the cover - everything. But I could not get through the book! Ugh...and I am a book finisher - I rarely leave a book unfinished, even if I have to force myself through it. This one...I couldn't even do that. I only made it halfway through. It just went on and on without anything happening! I'm so sorry, I wanted very much to like it, but the story just wound around and around without going anywhere. No action, no dialogue, no suspense...nothing. :(