Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan (currently 10 books)

Just read the first book of this series today. I was pretty impressed with it for a children's series -- far better than those Pendragon books I tried a while back anyway (not impressed there) -- and it might be the best series of books for children/YA that I've read since Harry Potter (Warriors, about the cats, was good too -- the first 6 books anyway). Though granted the number of them that I've tried since DH came out has been rather small, and I've only made it through one of these, so we'll see. I can't compare to Percy Jackson as those are still on my reading list for later.

The protagonist, Will, is refreshing. He isn't overly witty, hilarious, brilliant, or ridiculously lucky. He doesn't seem to be abnormally skilled at anything, but he is believably skilled at various things and has natural talent for a few others. His primary talents seem to involve movement or stealth -- he climbs remarkably well, naturally moves through shadows when he is trying not to be seen, and had good instincts for horsemanship. He also isn't afraid to ask questions and actively seek answers if he feels he needs them. To me he just seemed like a realistic, if above average, 15-year old given the way his background was represented.

I'll admit that a lot of times what's coming next is fairly transparent (the book was laden with "meaningful looks" and whatnot), but it didn't bother me as much as I would have expected. It also explains things sometimes that I'd rather were left to pick up on as context clues (for instance, when two of the characters form a real friendship over a shared dangerous experience -- think 'Troll in Bathroom' -- it's outright explained that it was a significant moment and that it would be a special friendship, etc.), but I think the target age is 9-12, so again, I have to keep that in mind. There's also some, well, I guess aboveboard awesomeness going on (horses are a little too well trained to be believable, etc.).

Official Description:

Anyone else given these books a go? I'll be checking the later ones out of the library the next time I go by.

 

I read the second book as well and I'm beginning to see where Sol is coming from. I felt the quality went down from the first book in this one for sure. More of the characters seem like caricatures than they did before, to the point that I couldn't suspend my disbelief.

An example would be when Alyss and Halt go to visit that dude who didn't want to provide men for the war -- he splutters about everything, acts like a petulant child, and seems completely useless despite a position in the world that suggests he'd at least be able to manage the basic appearance of competence.

I didn't start to enjoy reading until I was 13 when I read my first grown-up novel. Prior to that I'd read things like Goosebumps every so often but the joy of reading wasn't there. So I can't really say whether or not I'd have enjoyed this in the right age range.

I'm going to try to at least the third or fourth book, as I have those on hand, but unless the author manages to fix some of the more childish tendencies of the book I might drop it at that point. But I'm still tempted to say that it's a good series to give a youngster so long as they aren't advanced enough to be reading on another level of quality yet.

 

I did read a few more and, while the first novel continues to strike me as relatively strong, the others do not. I decided to give Percy Jackson a go instead afterwards. I think I might also re-read the first series of Warriors books -- I really did like the first set of 6 (though the later sets of 6 I did not enjoy nearly as much).

 

I didn't like His Dark Materials. Or, more specifically, I didn't like the second two (the first one was great). I felt like the author quit bothering to write an engaging story and decided to get on a soap box instead.

I now have Percy Jackson and Bartimaeus on my list. I enjoyed Redwall as a child, but only some of them (The Long Patrol and Martin the Warrior were great, but a lot of the others I felt were contrived, even as a child). I read Warriors (the books about the clans of cats living the forest) as an adult and, as I've said, enjoyed the first/original series of 6 books starring Rusty/Firepaw/Firetail/Firestar but wasn't as impressed with sequels.

Nothing else really comes to mind. As a child one of my favorite children's books was "Adam of the Road" which I read more than once. I enjoyed "The Giver" in junior high and continue to think that's a great book. I didn't like the Hobbit the first time I read it but the second time, a couple years later, I did.

 

I read 2 or 3 of the Artemis Fowl books and don't remember being particularly impressed, though I didn't dislike them either.

Is Maximum Ride the ones about the kids with wings? Where they'd been stolen at a young age and altered somehow and they can fly, or something? I read one of those if so, but I don't remember much about it. I think I had expected the book to be an adult novel (b/c of the author) so I went into it with the wrong expectations.