Cattywampus Tested- Daniel X: Watch the Skies

When last I reviewed Daniel X (on my old blog), our hero Daniel had just defeated several diabolical and rather nasty aliens on his most wanted alien list. The first book by James Patterson got high reviews from yours truly because, while the action-packed story is a little intense, I loved the fact that finally a story had been written expressly for tween and teenaged boys.

Well, Daniel is back in Daniel X: Watch the Skies, as are his evil alien enemies. The bad guys in this story are as bad as they can come. Patterson manages to infuse such great descriptions of his characters, that I found myself laughing aloud and reading passages to my 10-year-old son. Here’s one that had us both laughing:

“Imagine the theater for American Idol during the season finale. Now make it bigger–like Madison Square Garden in New York or the Staples Center in Los Angeles. And now quadruple its seating capacity. And now replace the mostly polite, family-oriented audience of American Idol with the loud, obnoxious fans of say, Jerry Springer or Howard Stern. And have them not be human.

Have some be three headed; have some be lobster clawed; have some wearing space suits; have some glowing with orange radiation; have some be nothing more than dense clouds of vapor; have some that look like huge unblinking eyeballs on mushroom stalks; have some with hammer heads, some with needle noses, some with feathers, some with frog legs, some with turtle backs, and some that look like Chinese dumplings with sea-urchin spines and metal helmets…well, that at least starts to paint the scene.”

Aside from passages like the above, the thing I enjoy about most about the Daniel X books is that you can’t put them down. Patterson chapters are sometimes only a page long, but there is always a teaser to keep you wanting to read the next chapter. And, there’s action from cover to cover along with humor. The quest to stop Alien Number 5 and 21, both on Daniel’s running list of the worst bad guys, takes Daniel on a more dangerous path than the previous book. He finds he has to rely on his imaginary family and friends, part of his greatest gift as an extra-terrestrial alien hunter, more than ever

If you have a boy on the cusp of the teen years, I highly recommend this book. Patterson has a young tween son himself and speaks the write language to keep his audience excited about reading. The books are quick reads, but also manage to include a pretty broad range of vocabulary—which is something I like about them. Kids can read and get wrapped up in the story, and not even realize they’re reading and learning new words along the way!

A word of caution—if your child is highly sensitive or has a lot of fears about things like aliens, I would hold off of the book until they are older. My son has these issues and because of that, we have not read it at age ten yet. But, I know that in a year or so, he will love these fast-packed action novels. Kudos to Patterson for finally giving our boys something exciting to read besides Harry Potter!

Check out more of Patterson’s series books for kids and go and see what other MotherTalk reviewers thought of the book!