Shelly's Book Blog

Brandon Sanderson gently spoofs the Harry Potter books with his very funny fantasy, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians. This book tells the story of an orphan named Alcatraz Smedry who discovers that he has a special "talent" for breaking things. Really -- his family and the others who know about the lies evil librarians have been telling for so long consider Alcatraz's habit of breaking things to be a special talent. His grandfather has a "talent" for arriving late. In fact, all the Smedry family members are revered as powerful oculators and are leaders in the effort to fight against the evil librarians' dastardly control of the world's information. What is an oculator, you ask? Evil librarians? Don't worry, all is explained, but readers will need to learn quite a bit of new vocabulary in order to follow the plot.

The story is fast-moving and exciting, but Alcatraz, who is the story teller, often interrupts the narrative with thoughts about the writing or reading process, or comments about himself. Most of these interruptions are pretty funny, but I did get annoyed with a few of them. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book, and my 12-year-old son read it very quickly, too, which tells me he must have really liked it. I look forward to reading more of this series.