Reviews for Battle day at Camp Delmont

The average rating for Battle day at Camp Delmont based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-18 00:00:00 Daniel Lawson Bambert doesn't go out and he doesn't try to publish his stories. He is pretty boring as a main character. His stories are also pretty boring. The concept of sending the stories out into the world was interesting, but executed in a boring way: all that gets changed is where each story is set, which is just a fill-in-the-blank exercise involving no research or actual characterization of the place. I liked the shop keeper, Bloom, but he was too nice. He would have given Bambert more genuine help by refusing to send food up the dumb waiter so the guy had to go out instead of staying home pitying himself (on account of his dwarfism, which apparently precludes having a normal life). *** Because I am interested in what strangers are reading, here is the list of books checked out by the previous borrower of this book: Thora: A Half-Mermaid Tale The Shamer's Signet Enchanted Glass The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet Miss Happiness and Miss Flower Alistair Grim's Odditorium The Absolute Sandman, Volume One The Road to Inconceivable A Greyhound of a Girl

Review # 2 was written on 2020-07-20 00:00:00 Timothy Van Ryswyk 4.5 stars This is one of the Telegraph's picks for the 100 books every child must read. I don't agree with all their picks. I mean, Lemony Snicket's "The Bad Beginning" was there and I think that kids can spend their time on something better. As for this selection, I am ambivalent. I think it's definitely worth reading. However, it's something like Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, best read when one is older and best read with a level of maturity higher than a ten-year-old's. The themes in this book might go completely over the head of many kids, just like how little of The Little Prince I understood when I was twelve. On the other hand, kids should be exposed to deeper, darker, more mature themes to get them to grow as people and as readers. No one should read Enid Blyton forever. The writing style was inconsistent, in my opinion. Sometimes the narrative felt rushed. Sometimes it was descriptive and metaphorical, and then it was simple and direct. I'm not sure if it has to do with Reinhardt Jung's writing, or the translation. But considering that Anthea Bell is an award-winning translator, I guess it's Jung. The writing isn't too bad, but it isn't very good either. We get to read Bambert's missing stories as little deviations from the main plot. The ones in the beginning are somewhat pointless. They were utterly "wut?"-worthy. The ones that came later were meaningful. Those are the ones that young children will not understand on their own. The thing I do like very much about it is that it's painfully realistic, something you rarely find in children's literature. The impossible plot is unrealistic because it isn't fulfilled the way the Bambert thinks it is. This isn't a fanciful, happy book. It is actually quite unhappy. If you want something for light, bedtime story reading, this isn't it. This book will make you think and wonder, feel pain and sadness, and cry, perhaps. (I did. A little.) Jung has written a fine book to think about. For sure, I'd like others to read it, too. I love it for the rare unhappiness in it, and I love it for its brutal reality. Emma Chicester Clark's illustrations are capital and go with the book so naturally. Really though, why isn't this book more famous? It deserves to be read more, it really does. I'm not ambivalent anymore - the kids deserve to read it.