Little Boy Lost (The Librarian, #1)

by Eric Hobbs

• ASIN: B005R55ERM
• Publish Date: 2011
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Format: eBook (Kindle)
• Pages: 173
• Language: English

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

Little Boy Lost is a middle grade adventure that takes every book lovers fantasy of stepping into our favorite worlds and brings it to life for Wesley. I definitely think that lovers of “The Neverending Story” or “The Pagemaster” will enjoy this fun adventure.

I really enjoyed Wesley and I thought he was incredible relate-able and I really rooted for him. I loved his gradual growth over the course of the book, and I’m super happy that he gained some much needed confidence in himself. Taylor, his best friend, is also wonderful. She sticks by Wesley and isn’t afraid to defend him when she needs to. Then of course there is Randy, who I kind of despised. He is a bully and a brat, and while I still didn’t like him in the end I did appreciate the fact that Hobbs gives us some moments to see how his life is without the presence of other people his age. He became a somewhat sympathetic character by the end. Locke is probably my favorite character though, he’s wild, free spirited, and for one so young he is pretty wise.

The best part of this book is the main focus, the library. Holy wow, it sounds gorgeous and old world beautiful (well as old world as you can get in the ‘new world’). If I could my local libraries to build cool dioramas and exhibits for books I’d be in there constantly! I love the attention to detail and the interesting premise behind the library, the ancient librarian, and his prized book. Unfortunately the library is in danger of being torn down and there is a lot more too it than simple cutthroat business tactics. Of course I also love the glimpses of a few familiar story lands as well as the potential locked in them. We get to see a good bit of the library in this one and I can’t wait to check out the second to see what is going to happen in a certain story world (“Oh what a world! What a world!”).

Overall I thought that this was a incredibly fun and quick read that I think would be wonderful for younger readers and adults alike. I definitely plan to pick up book two at some point.

[Stephanie]

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.