The Librarian by Eric Hobbs

(#1 in the Little Boy Lost series)
Genre: Middle Grade
Format: Kindle
Read: July 2012

Links

Eric Hobbs – Website
Amazon – Kindle
Add to: GoodReads ~ LibraryThing

Summary

Wesley Bates thinks his life pretty much sucks. He’s landed at the bottom of his school’s popularity ladder, and bully Randy Stanford seems to be waiting around every corner.

The troubled teen thinks he’s found a way to escape his real-world problems when he stumbles upon strange doorways in Astoria’s local library that seem to lead into the extraordinary worlds from all his favorite books. Oz, Neverland, Wonderland — they’re all a reality with Wesley’s new discovery. Wesley teams with best friend Taylor Williams to embark on a great adventure, both ready to leave the drama of middle school behind.

But the two kids quickly find themselves embroiled in a centuries-old battle for the library and the magic hiding within. Now, fighting alongside the eccentric old man who’s vowed to protect the building’s power, the pair must help ward off an attack by a shadowy group with a strange tie to Wesley’s nemesis, forcing Wesley to face the fears he’s been dodging… and one of the most terrifying bullies of all time!

My Thoughts

First of all, you know as a reader that you are going to be a little biased toward any kind of story that is set around books. There is also an old library in the story. In my mind I pictured it a little bit like the library from The Pagemaster. This library has big carved panels depicting some of the more well known scenes from classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan. It also has displays in front of each panel with items one might find in the world between the covers. We all know that libraries are magical places but this library takes that magic one step farther.

Wesley, our main character, could use some work. He’s that kid in school who is wicked smart but still gets picked on by the bullies. Wesley does gain a little bit of a backbone, but in 131 pages you can’t expect a character personality 180. There is also quite a bit of a cliffhanger. I was pretty distraught that the second book wasn’t available and I couldn’t find mention of it anywhere. 😦 While writing this review I visited the author’s website again to get the link for the review and lo, book two was being talked about. Guys, I went to Amazon and if you’re a Prime member (which I am) you can get the second book from the Kindle Lending Library. I adored the first book so much that I bypassed the KLL and went straight for the buy. For $2.99 and a little over a few 100 pages more I’m sure it will be well worth it. 🙂 Of course, I’ll let you know what I think once I roll around to it!

The Librarian by Eric Hobbs is one of those books that I picked up on Amazon because it was free. The story line sounded like something I might like to read and it’s pretty easy to click Buy when the price tag is $0.00 (as I write this on 10/2/12 it’s still only $0.99). Seriously it’s one of the better decisions I’ve made. Confession time: I didn’t expect much from it. My experience with self-published authors has been less than stellar. Too many of them have had blah plot lines and bland characters. Eric Hobbs truly delivers, in a small amount of space (only 131 pages), a story that I can get behind.

Series Reading Order

1. The Librarian
2. Unhappily Ever After