This book starts out a little similar to Inkheart by Cornelia Funke: The father buys unusal and antique books and sells them to dealers. In the begining we see him with his daughter, Daphna, also a lover of books. Later we are introduced to her twin brother Dexter, who is not so fond of books. The father finds an strange book that has words of nonsense in it and tries to sell it to a local book store full of magic books. Little does he know that this is the book the store owner has been seeking for years.

The Book of Nonsense is magical and full of surprises, there is no doubt about that. I just wish the beginning wasn't so similar to another book, even though the end is very different. I am interested in seeing where the series goes. ( )

The dangerous First Tongue of evil power threatens to be relearned. Twins involved in trying to destroy the Book of Nonsense that can revive the language. Nothing special about this story, and the twists are a little contrived. Not too clear (yet?) what the status of the longed lived ones is. Book 2 will have to be quite good for me to continue with series. ( )

Reviewed by Marta Morrison for TeensReadToo.com

Words have power! Every writer and reader knows this and that is why they surround themselves with words.

Daphna and Dexter are twelve-year-old twins. On the eve of their thirteenth birthday, all heck breaks loose.

Daphna has found an interesting bookstore the summer that her father has been gone looking for rare books. Their mother is dead. When she brings her father to that bookshop strange things start to happen. The owner, a wizened old blind man, has affected her father, and her father has promised the owner that Daphna will work for him starting the next day, her birthday.

Dexter, who doesn't like his sister, follows Daphna to the bookshop and figures out that the old man is hypnotizing her. Daphna and Dexter then have to figure out together the mystery and save both of their lives.

I enjoyed this story and will be waiting to read the next one. Daphna and Dexter are well-written and easy to root for.

I really enjoyed the fact that the author has written about dyslexia. My oldest daughter has light dyslexia, which is how the author described Dexter's condition. Words move on the page and fall off. Many people are ignorant about this disorder. They believe that if you are dyslexic then you only see letters and numbers backwards. My daughter's dyslexia is hard to treat, and even though she wears glasses that seem to keep the letters on the page, she has had a hard time catching up with her peers because of very ignorant teachers and administrators. So thank you, Mr. Slater, for bringing that disorder to the surface.

I will definitely be looking forward to the next installment of the SACRED BOOKS series. ( )

The teens in my book group read the Book of Nonsense and loved it. It's very accessible to middle school readers, yet it is remarkably gritty. The characters are in real danger, and they have troubled lives and relationships. I would recommend this to teens who prefer realistic fiction to fantasy, as well as those who like fantasy. It reminded me a bit of Charles De Lint. This is a promising first foray into YA fiction by Slater, and there's more to come! ( )

The Book of Nonsense is the first volume in the literary fantasy series Sacred Books written by David Michael Slater and published by Children's Brains Are Yummy. (Isn't that an absolutely fantastic name for a publisher?) According to their website, they're not afraid of taking some risks with their publications and even aim towards "creating the banned books of tomorrow." Time will tell whether or not The Book of Nonsense and the the rest of the series will fall into that category, but I can definitely see how it could.

Daphna and Dexter are about to turn thirteen. Their father, who has been away all summer book scouting, returns just in time for their birthday, but becomes increasingly distant. The twins suspect that it has something to do with a bizarre book that he found during his travels and the even stranger buyer--the owner of the newly established Antiquarian Book Center. The old man and his assistant, a bully by the name of Emmet, take an extraordinary amount of interest in the book as well as a peculiar interest in Daphne and Dexter. The siblings quickly realize that their family may be in danger and that they must work together to discover the truth about the book and about themselves.

Overall, The Book of Nonsense was a good book, although some of the characterizations, especially that of Emmet, seemed at times to be inconsistent if not incomplete. Even Daphne and Dexter came across as one-sided. However, Daphne's love of books is brilliantly clear and I, as a fellow book lover, enjoyed and appreciated that immensely. Dexter was slightly less convincing, particularly in regards to his big secret, but he most certainly qualifies as an accurate representation of a thirteen-year-old boy if my brother served as any sort of an example.

The book definitely feels like the first installment of a series (which of course, it is) with quite a bit of information crammed in as an introduction to the world. It took a bit for the pacing to really catch on, but by the end the plot moves along nicely. There were quite a few surprising twists thrown in that made the story engaging, although it was somewhat slow going to begin with. But, the twists were great and the twins, especially Dexter, quite clever. While the book was a quick, fun read and fairly enjoyable, I personally didn't find myself to be particularly taken with it, despite some of the very cool ideas being explored. The Book of Nonsense and the following books in the series probably will hold the most appeal for readers in middle school or junior high. Daphne and Dexter's adventures continue in The Infinite.

Experiments in Reading ( )