When MotherTalk asked me to review Maximum Ride 3: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports a young adult (YA) novel by best-selling author James Patterson, I was thrilled. I love science fiction/fantasy especially when it involves “mutants” like in X-Men or the Hereos televsion show on NBC. And I wanted to bring more YA book reviews to my readers.

At first Patterson did a great job bringing me into the world of Maximum Ride at the beginning of the book. I was especially intrigued that one of the characters, Fang, has a blog. (Always thought the Hermione could have used a wizard’s Internet – WizNet? – and a laptop so she wouldn’t have to carry around all those books.)

Lost, Confused and Angry
Then Patterson lost me, probably because I hadn’t read the first two books, Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment and Maximum Ride: School’s Out Forever. What the heck was Itex, The Voice, and Erasers? Then I couldn’t figure out why Max and the Flock (a group of elementary, middle and high school aged flying kids) were flying all over the place while trying to save the world. Patterson wasn’t helping with his one dimensional characters, lack of a sensible plot, and brief teenage romantic interlude either. What a mess!

I began to get angry as I waded through three-page chapters (the 405 page book has 133 chapters – why?), snarky teen dialogue, cliched evil scientists, and cartoon violence where only the bad guys get hurt and die (the good guys get a few boo-boos and quickly recover). Then it occurred to me that Patterson was dumbing down his prose because he was writing for kids. For shame!

Other Great YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books
With so many great YA science fiction/fantasy authors out there like J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pullman, Madeline l’Engle, and Roald Dahl there is no need to waste time with authors who write down to children. It’s a shame that Patterson and his publishers feel that he should in order to get kids to read. Still, the Maximum Ride books are well loved and very popular with the YA market – enough that the series is being made into a movie. I think it’s the “kids save the world” theme that hooks most youngsters.

So, if you find your child reading any of the Maximum Ride books, don’t be alarmed. Just think of them of beginner’s books. Once your child has a taste of YA science fiction/fantasy, introduce them to gems like Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet, C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia or Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Once they have a taste of the good stuff, they’ll never go back to “baby books” like Maximum Ride 3.

(Click here for more YA novel reviews.)

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