Jazzy Reads

The Golden Goblet – Book Review

May 16, 2019 by Jazzy

The Golden Goblet is about a young boy named Ranofer. Ranofer lives with his evil stepbrother, Gebu. Ranofer wants to one day be a master goldsmith, but his evil stepbrother Gebu will not apprentice him to any of the goldsmiths. Instead Ranofer is forced to work at Rekh’s goldsmith’s shop like a simple hireling.

One day Ranofer finds out that someone is stealing gold from the shop and he has a pretty good idea of who is doing it. But what can Ranofer do? If he tells anyone about it, Gebu will simply deny it.

With the help of his friend, Ranofer is able to get rid of one thief. And, much to his delight, Gebu stops stealing from the shop.

Things are starting to look up when, suddenly, Gebu takes him from his job at Rekh’s to being apprenticed in his stone-cutter’s shop.

Ranofer is horrified at having to work as a stone-cutter’s apprentice. To make it worse, Gebu is still getting rich. If he has stopped stealing from Rekh, where is he getting his money?

Together, Ranofer and his friends work on figuring out the mystery behind Gebu’s growing wealth. But they never expected what they found.

I liked The Golden Goblet because it had adventure and some mystery. I also liked the underdog theme in this story.

Book Details

Author: Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Publisher: Puffin Books, Reprint edition (May 6, 1996)

Age Range: 10-14

Media Type: PaperbackI

What to Expect: Adventure, Underdog-Type Story, Mystery,

Other books for you to enjoy:

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze

A Single Shard

Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Moccasin Trail

Filed Under: Adventure, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery

The Sherwood Ring – Book Review

December 27, 2017 by Jazzy

I had to read “The Sherwood Ring” for school (available here from Amazon.com).

The book looked so interesting, I actually read it ahead of time.

I’ve enjoyed the book so much, I have probably read it at least 5-6 times.

The Sherwood Ring Book Details

Written by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Illustrator: Evaline Ness

Age Range: 12 and up

Paperback: 266 pages

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company

ISBN: 0-618-17737-x

What to expect:

Mystery, Romance, Orphan, Ancestral Ghosts, History, Early American

Introduction:

The main character’s name is Peggy Grahame.

Her mother died when she was born.

Her father is an artist who sends her to as many camps and schools as he possibly can, so he can do his work.

Her father also dies, making Peggy an orphan.

Peggy goes to live at her uncle’s house, where she is completely ignored.

She is visited by her ancestors who come and tell her events from the past that slowly reconnect into her own life.

What I liked about The Sherwood Ring:

I like all the plots and twists. You never know what is going to happen until the very end of the book.

Things happen that you had no idea would happen.

It’s interesting how the romance from the past reconnects to the romance of the present.

The ancestral ghosts know what is going to happen to her, so they help her with the different events in her life.

The chapters go between the past and the present.

I like this because it switches between the main story and the past.

The past takes place during the Revolutionary War.

It’s nice that the house in the story has artifacts from George Washington’s time.

There is one chapter that has some codes and ciphers, and I liked this because it gives you an idea of how you might be able to use codes if you were just playing.

They give you everything in the book so that if you wanted to you could use the information from the book to make your own codes to play with.

There is some funny humor in this book.

There is an old dumpy car called Betsy. The author says that “Betsy tried to jump the fence”, almost like the car was a horse.

The car is always broke down and Pat has to tinker with it to get it to work.

The illustrations are very interesting. It definitely makes you look twice.

The author almost makes you like the bad character.

He is a British terrorist during the Revolutionary War.

He is raiding George Washington’s war supplies.

George Washington sends an arrogant young man.

Who tries a series of things to get the bad guy, but fails every time.

Both characters battle with their wits.

What I didn’t like about this book:

I like practically every part of this book.

I didn’t like the fact that there were many places where the author took God’s name in vain.

I just used a black marker to cross out those words.

I almost wish there was more to the story so that I could know what happened to the characters.

Overall, there wasn’t much that I didn’t like about this book.

My book recommendation:

I really like The Sherwood Ring.

As I mentioned at the very beginning, I have already read this book 5 or 6 times.

It’s a great book and I think you should read it. You can buy a new or used copy of The Sherwood Ring here. (Amazon.com)

If you liked The Sherwood Ring, you might also like…


The Witch of Blackbird Pond: This book also has an orphan girl and is from an earlier time period. No ghosts in the book. Also has romance.


The Secret of the Sealed Room: This book is about a girl and a boy who work together and are both misfits. They are trying to solve the mystery of a secret sealed room.

Filed Under: Ghosts, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance

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