The Adventures Of Ai

Recently, I was asked to review the new children’s novel: The Adventures of Ai, which was written for children aged 9 - 11.  This wonderful story was written by Craig Bouchard, a Wall Street tycoon and the author of two adult books.  This is his first (but hopefully not last) children’s novel.  It embeds a story, inside a story, inside a story and tells a wonderful tale of adventure.  In addition to the book, there is also an iPad app where children can have adventures just in 1500’s Japan, just like Ai in the story.  Children can compete with children in other countries.  The country that leads competition wins 10% of total revenues for charities in their country.

I personally read an enjoyed this book, and I even have a novel study unit in the plans for this book.  However, when we received our free, advanced, copy I decided to share it with my 10 year old son.  He loved the book as well and wrote this review for you all:

The Adventures Of Ai is a story of a father telling a story to his three girls. The father told them a story of when he went to Japan in 1992. In Japan he had a great adventure, an adventure he would never forget. It started on a beautiful but chilly spring morning in Japan he was sitting on his patio, when a ball bounced over the wall. He found out it was a baseball, then somebody knocked on the door. This was the start of his adventures with the Hara family.  The grandfather of this family shared with him a special story, which is the third story – in a story – in a story of this story.

When the man was invited to the Hara’s home for dinner, he thought he would sit on a chair to eat, but they sat on the floor. This reminded of when I went to Morocco, and we would sit on the floor to eat when invited to our Aunt’s house. After everyone ate the grandfather told the man to meet him in his office. When the man got to the office, the man was flabbergasted to be told a story about a girl named Ai who had a  adventure with mythical creatures such as an Oni. An Oni is a mix match of a goat and a human.          

 I think that this book is good for pre-teens and above.This book would be wonderful for people who love nature, but also to people who love to be adventurous, like me! The author described the action to make you feel like you’re right inside the book. This author is great. I hope that he makes more spectacular books in the future.  

Find more book reviews and stories of my adventures at Traveling From a Kid’s Point of View.        

 

 

Would you like your own copy of The Adventures of Ai  for your Kindle?  Follow my newsletter and leave me a comment here with your name, e-mail and why you would like this book before August 1st.  On August 1st, I will choose two lucky followers to receive their own free copy of this amazing children’s novel set in current day USA, 1992 Japan and 1514 Japan. 

 

Book Review

For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. You can download my E-Book of Websites for the Elementary Classroom for free from Teachers Pay Teachers or Smashwords, or, you can check back here each week for the website suggestion.

Critiquing the books you read is a great way to think back on what happened in the book, analyze what appealed to you and what didn’t, and generally synthesize your understanding of the book.  This is why I have always had students do book reviews or critiques in one form or another.  Some years, I have used my Book Review Bookmarks.  Other years, I have used my Reading Response Journal.  This year, I decided to turn my critiques electronic.  My students have been writing critiques to their books on my Good Reads account.  This has the added benefit of allowing students to share their book reviews and read other book reviews from people NOT in our classroom.  In addition to giving them a real life audience, it gives them a real life purpose.  We have talked about how one person’s review could persuade another person to buy – or not buy – a book.  This was a great link to our economics unit, as well as a reason to write fair and honest reviews.  If you are interested in publishing book reviews with your students, there are lots of ways for them to do it.  Here are three possibilities: 1.  Use Good Reads, a site where people can read, compare and recommend books to each other. 2.  Leave a review on Amazon, most books are sold somewhere on this huge marketplace, so this is a great one for real life usage.  3.  Write a review for Scholastic and apply to have it posted.  Note, not all reviews submitted to Scholastic get posted. 4.  Have students write blog posts about their books.  My son wrote a critique of Horatio’s One Wish, a book he read on his Kindle on his blog – Traveling From a Kid’s Point of View.   Before students write their own reviews, you might want to have them read reviews of others.  If you are looking for reviews geared specifically for children, check out Slime Kids’ Book Reviews, which features 16 different sites that have book reviews written just for kids.