I enjoyed Fox's memoire "Borrowed Finery" very much. This book, written before the memoire, covers much of the same territory, but the effort to turn what clearly are parts of Fox's own life into fiction doesn't work all that well. I had to laugh when I discovered Fox giving her own childhood to one of the characters.

All of the characters in "The God of Nightmares" are weird in one way or another, except the main character, Helen, who tells the story. She seems pretty ordinary until the last chapter when Fox tries to show us Helen isn't so nice after all. I didn't like this last chapter, which takes place more than 25 years after the main story. Fox tries too hard to tie things up and tell us what happened to each of her characters. I was especially irritated by the way she changed the husband -- but I won't say more about that as it comes as something of a surprise.

My daughter loved this book. It was a library favorite that I'm excited to find available for purchase here. It's so much better than the usual counting books. It continues to be an entertaining book even when children know their numbers and can count forward and backward to ten. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new twist on counting books.

I read many of the Amber Brown books with my 7-year old daughter, and generally, we love them. All of the books have a portion dedicated to the fact that her parents have split up and how she is dealing with this situation. Although my daughter cannot relate directly to that, it has lead to some interesting discussions. Most of the books have a humerous story interweaved, but unfortunately, not this one. It is a story of a girl who goes to Europe to visit her father, gets sick, and is bored sitting in her aunt's flat. We were as bored as Amber. While I would highly recommend other books (I, Amber Brown; Amber Brown Sees Red; Forever Amber Brown), I have to recommend staying away from this one.

This book was an okay book, but thier could have been a little more excitement and adventure, which I think makes this book kind of boring, but the good thing is she had fun in Europe.

I just finished this story. It is about Amber Brown at school. Her best friend Justin Daniels just moved away. When she came home her parents get divorced. Guess what! Her dad moves to France. She could not believe what happened to her life. Her life was wrecked into pieces! She was heart broken. Then a couple of months later she goes to France. She was so happy to see her dad. France was so cool. But she gets the chicken pox! I thought the book was great! It lots of parts I liked. I don't have a favorite part, though!- By Amanda H. Age 7

I once heard someone describe a dull western movie as a "plodding oater." OK, so this is not a western adventure, but the description fits.

Every now and then, I run across a children's book that challenges my sanity. This one qualifies. Perhaps some children have the tenacity to finish books that repeat, and repeat, and repeat words, phrases, and ideas over and over. Perhaps all of this repetition reinforces reading skills. Well, I could not finish the book and my daughter was bored to sleep before we could get past the halfway point.

... I found this book perfect for an early reader. The repition is exactly what an early reader needs to reinforce their reading skills and also helps reinforce the concepts being introduced.