3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Hero, 8 Feb 2005
A Kid's Review - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hero (Paperback)
The book called The Hero, written by Ron Woods is a story about a fourteen years old boy named Jamie. The story takes place in 1957, and begins during a long and hot summer's day. Jamie, who has been asked by his mother to tend to the weeds near the garden, soon becomes bored with the old method of hoeing up weeds and conspires the notion to set the weeds on fire. Little did Jamie know that the fire would spread out of his control, causing his mom to have to help him put the fire out with a wet, saturated old blanket? Luckily, he and his mom eventually put the fire out before it burns down the neighbor's fence. This was extremely horrifying experience for Jamie, and it leads the reader to think, what distracted Jamie from not tending to the fire promptly? He was daydreaming. A dream about building a raft with his friend Jerry and then rafting down the Payette River in Idaho. After dealing with the consequences of the fire, Jamie and his friend Jerry built a raft, and launched it down the river. Since this was their first attempt at taking on the rolling rapids and swift water, they decided to take a test run, so they invited, pimple face Dennis, who nobody really cared for, to go along with them on the trip. They put their raft in the water, and then headed down stream, little did they know that after the first dam, and dumping Jerry off of the raft that this trip was long from over
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hold on to your seat for a wild ride, 15 Oct 2002
By Lu Ann Staheli "allstars" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Hero (Hardcover)
Fourteen-year-old Jamie West can hardly wait to gather wood for the raft he is building with his cousin Jerry. When weeding the garden takes too long, Jamie decides to set the weeds on fire. He hasn't counted on the speed dry grasses burn, however, and soon the blaze is beyond his control. Jamie realizes only water will halt the fire, and he cuts the ditch bank, flooding the area and dousing the flames. Nothing could be more frightening, Jamie decides, before he and Jerry are stranded on the raft in the middle of the Payette River with Dennis Leeper, a neighborhood boy whom everyone tries to avoid. Their situation doesn't seem too bad, until they go over the first dam and lose Jerry from the raft. Hold on to your seat for a wild ride, which leads Jamie to discover what it takes to be a hero and a man. I'm using this as a read aloud for an 8th grade English class and they are loving it!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Hero Review, 12 Jun 2005
By Stansta - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hero (Paperback)
Have you ever lied to get yourself off the hook or cover-up something? In this novel, Jamie tries to make everyone in his town believe that Dennis is hero but nobody would fall for this lie. Isolated by all his neighbors, Arlie Leeper wants someone to pay for his son's death and is ravaging for the murderer of his lost boy. Consequently, Jamie's dad assures Arlie that this tragedy was not directly caused by anyone but if he insists on blaming somebody, it would have to be him. Arlie took this message a little too seriously and is out to hunt him down. He says that a Leeper gets even and that's what Jamie is afraid of. This novel completely redefines the adventure genre books and Ron Woods is able to handle the ending with emotion depth and a convincing ending. I would highly recommend this page-turner to anyone who wants to read a book that explores human nature. The only thing that this novel needed was length because I thought Woods could extend his plot.