Book Review: "Glub & Charlie and the Trolls" by Olive Sharke and Arthur Sharke

⭐ out of 5

Oh dear me.

This is supposed to be a chapter book for 7-10 year olds.

It doesn't have a single chapter in it, it's way too short and there are 45 words in the first half of the book alone that there is no way a child would read and the word "surreptitiously" on the very first page would make them put the book down and never pick it up again.  Had you even heard the word "surreptitiously" when you were 7 years old?  Did you know what it meant by 10 years old?  I know I certainly didn't!

I'm feeling especially generous with this, but there are 99 words that a child would either not know how to pronounce/read at best and/or not even understand or have heard of at worst.

The authors seem to have written the book without even thinking about which words they knew, read and understood even as a ten year old, let alone as a seven year old!

Don't believe me?

Here's the list:
surreptitiously
disguised
composing
astonishment
considered
possibility
momentarily
benevolent
imaginary
soulful
topiary
despondent
fantastic chemistry
earnest
beguiling
doting
valiant
whereby
slavering
encounter
soundlessly
continuously
beduveted horizontal
verticle
versed
truffle detection
vainly
furiously
stubbornly remained
grudges
eventually succeed
visualise
doddering
hobbling
catalogue
gathered
eighty
muzzle
Canine Gazette

We are only 50% of the way through the entire book here, but hopefully you're starting to see what I mean.  Let's get on with the second half's words:

interesting
superiority
Metropole
Pooch
bliss
carelessly
instinctively
whispered
cert
unaware
status
solitary
jeopardized
strangeness
surrounded
rattling
indignant
beautifully groomed
spectacular
delicate
gesture
perplexed
earnestly
queried
Beethoven
astonished
vague
interrupted
battered
alarmed
turn-ups
felled tree
sensing
Pandemonium
maliciously
woefully
sympathy
scanned
scarpered
riddance
straining and whining towards
responsibility
whispering
complicated, especially
settled
heaved
response
beaming
tempted
wistfully

See what I mean?

It's all very well wanting to stretch a child's vocabulary, but almost 100 words in only 54 pages including the cover and copyright page and adverts for their other books at the back.  That's almost two words per page on average!  There were a few pages without any of those words on, but there were usually at least two of those words, usually more, per page.

If your child has a strong reading ability, big vocabulary and loves looking words up in a dictionary, then they might get on OK with this book, but most children won't even make it to the second page.  Sorry.