Eoin Colfer was born and raised in Wexford in the south-east of Ireland. He began writing plays at an early age and, as an adult, continued to write. Eoin has written two books for younger children - THE LEGEND OF SPUD MURPHY and THE LEGEND OF CAPTAIN CROW'S TEETH - as well as the highly acclaimed THE SUPERNATURALIST, but he is best-known for his award-winning ARTEMIS FOWL books, featuring the brilliant young anti-hero. Eoin lives in Ireland with his wife, two sons and an overactive imagination.
Gr 4-7-A lonely old woman and John, a troubled boy, connect and gain renewed feelings of optimism and friendship in this lovely story by Lois Lowry (Walter Lorraine Books, 2006). The title character, initially named Littlest One, is a dream-giver one of the tiny creatures who bring good dreams to humans and animals. The inquisitive creature is first taught by Fastidious but drives the cranky teacher mad with her constant questions and humorous hijinks. Thin Elderly takes over Littlest's training and they successfully concentrate on the old woman and the boy. By touching objects in the house that belong to each character, the dream-givers absorb happy memories associated with those items and bring these remembrances into the people's dreams. The dream-givers polar opposites, the terrifying Sinisteeds, are after John, who is in foster care because of an abusive home life. It is up to Littlest to protect John from the potentially permanently damaging nightmares that he is given by the Sinisteeds. Anne Twomey is a superb narrator for this imaginative and dreamy story. She easily conveys the old woman's patience and gradual understanding of what the boy has experienced in his unhappy life. Listeners can hear the gradual lessening of John's anger in Twomey's voice. Her pacing is superb, and she has a wonderful ability to convey the lightness and yet gravely vital personalities of the dream-givers. An excellent recording of an intriguing novel.-B. Allison Gray, John Jermain Memorial Library, Sag Harbor, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Both author and reader are certainly seasoned professionals: Colfer writes the popular Artemis Fowl series, and Reilly has worked steadily in films, television and on stage. But their joint effort here doesn't quite click. There's a coy, often overly cute (and possibly offensive) tone to the audio version of Colfer's story about a 12-year-old Irish lad named Fletcher Moon known as "Half Moon" by his classmates because of his short stature who earned the right to call himself a private detective (complete with a shiny badge) from a dubious academy on the Internet. It could be the fault of the dialogue, but Reilly makes many of the characters sound like "stage Irish" the sort of people Hollywood used to hire Barry Fitzgerald to play. And while part of Fletcher's charm is supposed to be his indifference to being the butt of his peers' jokes, he is too much of a nerd and rampant fantasist to gain listeners' sympathy. Ages 10-up. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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