My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

Barf alert, this book is not good! I feel sad that this book was published, I feel sad that is a potential nominee for the state book award next year and most of all I feel sad that I was willing to let this book take 120 pages of my time last night. Now granted 120 pages is a little under half of the book, so it could get better, but I doubt it. First and foremost the writing style bugged me, it was written in what I assume was supposed to be the "voice" of the character (a twelve-year-old girl), what that means is a lot of simple sentences Subject, Verb, Object, Subject, Verb, Object, over and over again. It was like reading an easy-reader that's 260 pages long. Secondly, the plot was driven forward by the main character making poor choices, I can't stand that. For example, the main character Jane gets duped into babysitting for the horrible Mrs. Gourd (she's afraid of being sued) when clearly Jane just needs to have a conversation with her mother. And then there's Nellie, the preacher whose hopelessly poor decision making makes one question how it was that she survived to adulthood in the first place. Of course, Jane ends up spending a lot of time with her. And finally, this book was all about a series of adventures, many of which should have been exciting. Instead Horvath has a way of glossy over the exciting parts and deemphasizing potentially thrilling situations (who knew a hot air balloon ride- on a stolen hot air balloon no less- could be so boring?).

This book did actually remind me a little bit of a book I really like, Way Down Deep, a story about a sweet little girl with a big heart and small town charm who you fell in love with instantly. My One Hundred Adventures is like Way Down Deep if it had been written by a dung beetle or any other similarly unliterary insect. Jane is a pretty nice girl whose heart seems to be in the right place (most of the time), who while she does possess a certain charm of her own is ultimately more of a character you want to like (but never quite can), than one you'll fall in love with. And those sentences Subject, Verb, Object, Subject, Verb, Object, Arrgh!

Give this book two children who enjoy experiences commonly held to be unenjoyable, such as stubbing your toe, coming down with food poisoning or sitting next overweight mustached men with BO on the bus grades 4 to 7