READING LEVEL: 4.5 AR POINTS: 6.0
(Ages 8-12 yrs, Grades 3-7)

I'm 57 years old (well...almost) and I had a hard time following this story. What the heck? The way the author writes was a little confusing for me. I sure wouldn't advise parents to allow their 3rd grader to read this.

This story starts out all nice and chummy. Charlie Reynolds is the new 12-year-old kid in Taper, Florida, a town surrounded with mounds and sugar canes and marsh. He discovers a half-brother in the same school he is attending. His new step-dad becomes the new football coach when ol' Coach Willie dies. The football team has a tradition of chasing and catching and releasing rabbits that are forced out of the burning sugar cane fields. This is a competition showing the fastest kids on the team.

But, things suddenly turn all "night of the living dead" and evil spirits are tracking down kids and people who wander into those sugar cane fields. Whoa! The mother of those stinking living dead creatures from the marsh (who were former residents of Taper) needs to be fed don't you know. So, these evil spirits are having people turn on each other until the town is in total chaos. If they can create evil thoughts inside your head, then your game for their kill. Charlie Reynolds is the one who wants to find this motha' and kill her....

So, as you can tell, I don't think this is for the really young kids. I wouldn't give this to any of my grandkids to read. ( )

This was ok, but I kept thinking I should like it more--giant panthers, ghostly apparitions, maggot-infested wounds should pretty much keep the reader hooked, but I had trouble hanging on to the characters and what they were doing. I could understand the story but couldn't make myself care, instead wondering about other books that I could be reading instead, and that was disappointing. ( )

It started out like an 80's After School Special , until the muck and the panthers and the Dark Shadows and the giant man with a conquistador's helmet and sword. Then things hit good. It was a clever way to through in Beowulf and some other classic literature. Kinda eerie and yet it ended with a warm touch. Oh yea, people die. SPOILER. ( )

Looking for a book that will tug at your heartstrings, give you a chuckle, and scare your pants off? Look no further than Boys of Blur, the newest book from the author of the 100 Cupboards series.

Charlie, along with his mom, stepdad, and little sister, are in the tiny town of Taper in the swamplands of Florida for a funeral. It’s where his dad, his mom, and his stepdad all came from, but Charlie’s glad not to live there – after all, one evening spent in the burning sugarcane fields with his cousin Cotton proved that there are plenty of frightening things out there, even for boys fast enough to run down the rabbits escaping the flames. But when Charlie’s stepdad announces that he’s taking a football coaching job right there and the family is moving to Taper, it falls on Charlie and Cotton to make the town safe for everyone else.

Can the boys discover and destroy whatever’s haunting the sugarcane fields, robbing graves, and burning down the town…before there’s nothing left to save?

Grownup portion of review:

What’s this? A literary zombie book? Don’t hate – it’s true. Think Beowulf coming head to head with the most complex of Spinelli’s boy protagonists. In fact, Cotton refers to the book Beowulf a few times, the undead monsters in the sugarcane are called Gren, and their life source is their powerful mother. But Charlie is no Beowulf – he’s equipped with the courage and heart, but you’ll never hear him boast. ( )

Charlie finds himself in the sugar cane lands where his father and step-father grew up and played football. Charlie's dad was not a good father or man, and both he and his mother have scars from that. When Charlie's cousin Cotton takes him into the cane fields running through the muck, the boys discover a man working to fight off an ancient evil. They can't quite believe what they see, but the evil seems to be getting stronger and stronger.
In this action packed book, Charlie has to risk everything to save his new family and home. ( )