July Book Choices: 14 Great But Lesser-Known Fantasy Novels for Lil' Nerds

[Wendy B]

For July, in honour of kids no longer being in school but still needing to have their brains functioning, here are some recommended reads for the younger nerds -- which are still great reads for adults! If you read them when you were young, read them again and see how they have changed. If you haven't read them, check them out! If you have kids, make them reeeead!

14 Great But Lesser-Known Fantasy Novels for Lil' Nerds
http://tinyurl.com/67bvgo5
"As nerds, we have an obligation to pass on our sacred nerd knowledge
to the next generation. Not only is it a good way to to keep the nerd
ranks swelled, and not only is it a great feeling to help young
nerdlings discover their own interests, but getting small children to
enjoy your favorite books, movies and series is like having all the
power of a drug dealer, but with none of police scrutiny. To continue
the metaphor, books will always be nerdery's heroin, because books are
inherently more special to us than movies and cartoons and the like.
More nerdy, too."

[Taz Shanahan]

I picked a few, then went with what I could find - I still have The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer waiting on an ebay auction to finish, but it looked good so I'll just read it later.

So, I managed to find a .pdf version of Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques (which I converted for my Kindle) & went with that for now.

It's not a bad book. I like the Flying Dutchman / curse angle, but the characters, for the most part, are a bit too black and white, which makes them not actually terribly interesting - apart from Den/Ned the dog, he was hilarious.. I know this is supposed to be a book for kids and as such it's quite a good moral compass read, but I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't be too adult for, in places.
All in all, not too bad a read, but not sure I'll bother with the sequels.