Posts
 |
| Bookcover Via Amazon.com |
Opinion
This review is because Demetri was kind enough to send me this children’s book he had written and illustrated himself and because he has a great team behind him who asked me to do this review for him. I am very thankful for the book, and the reason is that I already had previously reviewed another book he had done about the Nautilus and the plans for it. This is not the same kind of book, but it does inspire just as much imagination.
Today I am doing this review with the help of my five-year-old son; we will call him “Buddy” for this review. Buddy has high spectrum autism, and he’s so brilliant. He can read very well for five, and he has a love of all things fun and technical. This is the perfect book for him.
So one lovely rainy morning, Buddy and I were sitting on the couch, and we were reading this book. Buddy loves it so much he didn’t put it down all day. He reread it, and again and yet again. So from a five-year-old’s perspective, “Ned” is one of the coolest books ever. He loved the drawings, especially the ones of space and night time. Buddy thought the tug boats are pretty, and the lighthouse picture was also pretty. He also spent a good portion of the day drawing pictures of Ned on his coloring tablet.
Now, let’s get into what I thought. As a reader to my children, I’ve read many books to them. The way this is written is easy to repeat, none of the words are too technical, and none of the concepts are out of touch for a child to understand. I loved that the story moved along and had a very well done character arch for Ned. I also liked that it was a whole story with a message that was both honorable and reasonable.
I do have a small critique here, and it comes from my “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” section of scoring. The text on the pages does not fit the traditional stanza set, nor does it match what you usually see in children’s books with where it’s placed. There are very poetic stanza like sections, but it’s not written in traditional stanza method. It’s almost written as though to fit the page, but sometimes it doesn’t exactly fit just right sometimes. Now, with that said, the story moves along well and doesn’t suffer from the way the text was placed on the page. I also am not going to criticize the poem at all in the book, because it’s a beautiful kind of poetic rhythm. It’s partially free form, and partly rhythmic poetry and I enjoy the nature of it.
The other thing I love about this book; it didn’t hurt my eyes to read it. I hate when children's books have a font that is entirely too small. This isn’t a small font, nor is it a huge font, it’s just right. Tired eyes shouldn’t get too sore from it. My son read it well too; he was reading along. He was only confused about what Nuclear meant, and we had to discuss heat, water, and water vapor. No way was I going into radiation with him, he’s too little to get that right now, but he did understand the basic concepts of steam power.
To end this review, I want to give you all some thoughts. I asked my son for his thoughts on “Ned.”
“My book says Ned the Nuclear Submarine, and he’s my favorite book. The pages are the best. I love the colors and the sky! I love boats! I want to go where the guys go, they go in the water and see animals!”
In other words, my son Buddy is thrilled with Ned. He’s also been asking me for a Ned stuffy, so that’s something that I may have to make for him. He draws pictures of Ned, he falls asleep with the book in his arms, and by far, I think my son is a Ned fan.
Score
Overall this book is well done. After doing my math, this is a 92/100 which is a 5-star review on Amazon and Goodreads. I encourage you to buy this hard-copy for the little engineer in your life. With more girls learning about STEM, this would be perfect for them because the message of the story is suitable for any child regardless of where they live or their backgrounds. I also believe this will help inspire dreams into kids who don’t know about ocean traveling.
