Reviews for Arthur loses his marbles

The average rating for Arthur loses his marbles based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-12 00:00:00 Michel Muller I can't understand how/why this series has such cute, updated covers and then you open it up to that dismal, old illustration style with faded colors and ugly characters. Why can't they extend the same cover illustrations into the whole book? It was funny how they passed another camp with all these body builder kids and Arthur said it wasn'ta camp; it's a zoo. The writing could have been more stimulating and interesting. They had dinner that tasted like macaroni and fleas and wormburgers. What do fleas taste like and what are wormburgers? Also, the rival camp was called Horsewater and their camp was Meadowcroak. What is up with those names? The girls had a nice, encouraging coach, while the boys had a drill sergeant who criticized their shapes and eating habits. It was cute when after Arthur discovered frogs in their beds, Brain said they're amphibians and Buster corrected him by saying no, they're frogs. The whole time Arthur had been sending letters home about how much he missed his parents and telling them to come get him. It was so sad when he wrote that he cried when he read their letter. Poor Arthur! Things started escalating between the boys and girls. The girls thought the boys put a smoke bomb in their tent, and the boys thought the girls stole their clothes. The boys looked funny clutching towels and Arthur holding a leafy limb to their midsections while their clothes were hanging from the flag pole. All 3 girls and 3 boys had their heads peeking out from under their tent flaps and they looked so comical. That might they all heard footsteps so they knew it was to each other. All the kids were scared and couldn't enjoy themselves and Buster and Brain decided to hide out the next night to see what was going on. They saw the Horsewater camp out there howling and using a tool to make footprints in the ground. They made plans to pay them back at the scavenger hunt. And it was funny that Arthur's plan was to run away and he told his parents he wasn't going to wait for them; he thought he remembered the way home. Brain's plan was to dress in Muffy's fur coat while they all yelled out bear. It worked like a charm. All the big kids were scared, started climbing up into the trees. All you could see of one kid were legs protruding from the leaves. They looks for objects, which included a balloon, sunglasses, sneaker, banana, alarm clock, and flashlights. Very strange items to find in the middle to the woods. It should have been things found in nature. They all wondered where Arthur was and still needed to find a flashlight to win the hunt. Meanwhile Arthur was lost and clicked on his flashlight to see. That's when they found him at the same time and had the last item needed. They cheered him on about it that he saved the day. I thought it was a really cool, creative touch that he showed up with the missing item and saved the day, finally had a good experience at camp and was useful to his team. It was just what he needed to enjoy camp. But a part of me felt that since he didn't participate in the rest of the hunt for all the other items that he didn't deserve to get the credit for winning, especially since he spent the whole time trying to leave them all in the lurch and hightailed it out of there at the first sign of trouble. It would have been better had he decided to stay and help his friends because he wanted to, not because he accidentally did. The last letter was him saying the scavenger hunt and camp was great and he wanted to come back next year. It was cute the turnaround he had. It wasn't what I expected and the cover is misleading not just because that's not the illustration showed in the book, but because Arthur is depicted going through the woods with a flashlight like he's participating in camp activities, when the only time he did that is when he was leaving at the end. His letters were complete with spelling mistakes, and that was charming. They were the funniest things about the book. I wish there had been more activities and that he could have had fun instead of been trying to leave the whole time.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-07-05 00:00:00 William Wake This is good book to read to kids who may have truble leaving home for either sleepovers or camps, it helps them relate to the fear of leaving home while at the smae time showing them it's rewarding to face your fears, becuase aruthur has so much fun once he does go to camp. Could also prompt a scavenger hunt lesson for the class, b/c they do one in the story.