The Green Flash
Written by Joan Aiken
Reviewed by Holly L. (age 11)
The Green Flash has many short stories! Two very great stories are ?Marmalade Wine?, and ?Sonata for Harp and Bicycle?. ?Marmalade Wine? is about a man named Blacker, who is a poet, who was taking a walk in the woods. Blacker finds that there were so many birds on the ground! He also found a strange looking man sitting in a chair. The strange looking man invited Blacker over with him to relax and have some wine, called Marmalade wine. Then he falls asleep in one of the man?s chairs. Later on Blacker found himself somewhere else in a room which he wasn?t familiar with! Another story from the Green Flash was called ?Sonata for Harp and Bicycle?. A man named Mr. Jason Ashgrove was trying to figure out what Miss. Golden wanted for her birthday. Miss Golden and Mr. Jason Ashgrove worked at the same place together in an office. Miss Golden really liked Mr. Ashgrove. All she wanted for her birthday was him, but she lied and said she wanted a harp and a bicycle. Mr. Ashgrove had a very hard time trying to find those things. When he was looking for Miss. Golden?s presents he saw a building that said private property. Mr. Ashgrove was very curious about it so he went inside. Soon after he noticed he wasn?t the only one in there!
The Green Flash was a very good book! I liked it because it was very different from other books in many ways. One reason is that you would expect that ahead of time something obvious would happen like in the other books. For example, if there was a super hero, at the end of each book you would figure that they would win against the bad. My favorite part of the book was the story ?Sonata for Harp and Bicycle? when Mr. Ashgrove had crossed private property and that he wasn?t alone in the building! I thought this was interesting because it had built suspense of who was in there with him! I thought Mr. Jason Ashgrove was interesting because he was very brave for going into the spooky private property building.
I recommend this book for ages 8 and up because some of the stories are kind of hard to read and there are also some difficult words in it. I also recommend this book for people who like fantasy, mysteries, and a little bit of suspense.