The Red King Series (Charlie Bone Series) by Jenny Nimmo
Way back in November, Kristie and I began reading this series together. I wasn’t very impressed with book one, if you will remember, but she loved them and kept reading. Determined to set aside my literary prejudices, I gave the entire series a chance. More than once I heard Jax say…”You don’t HAVE to read all of those you know.” “You know you don’t HAVE to finish that, right?” But the problem is, I did HAVE to finish. When I begin a project, you can bet that I will finish it. It may take years…it may be pointless by the time I’m done…but I will finish. And so here we are nearly 5 months later, ready to write a review for the entire 8 book Charlie Bone series.
Content
Charlie Bone is a “gifted youth,” who finds himself at Bloor’s Academy to be educated with other “gifted youth.” However, the majority of the students are gifted musically, artistically, or theatrically. There are less than 20 students with magical talents. They don’t get any training for these talents either, so I don’t understand why they need to go to a special school. They do have a separate “homework” period together, so I guess they know who the other “gifted” kids are.
On the weekends, Charlie goes home to his family, which consists of his mom, uncle and two grandmothers. His Grandma Bone is truly evil but they continue to live together under the guise that she has some kind of power over everyone. I never figured out what that power was, but no one moved out. But Grandma Bone’s brother, Uncle Patton, is quite her opposite. He helps Charlie to figure out his purpose as a descendant of the Red King and together they fight those forces of evil.
Recommendation
I give this series 2 out of 12 buttered rolls. I’m just not a fan. The character, backstory, and entire premise is flawed. Each book has its own mystery to solve, with some problems carrying over from book to book. However, each book ends suddenly without proper resolutions. That could work, but the next book never references the conflict from the previous book. It just seems mishmashed and jumbled. But it deserves 2 rolls because there was nothing objectionable and Kristie loved the whole series. I will end with her previous recommendation written after she had finished book 1 or maybe even 2.
I love Midnight for Charlie Bone because there is a lot of adventure and fun in it. It is fun to read about stuff like this when I can figure out what to do and what is going to happen in it. For example, I’m pretty sure I have figured out who Charlie’s Dad is, even though they have no idea. I really like adventure books and it reminds me of books like Harry Potter and Fablehaven. I like adventure and I really like books that have nothing to do with love. It is annoying to read a book when all they focus on is love. The only love in Charlie Bone is the love between family members. It is mysterious and cool how they are able to use there powers and able to solve the problems.