By: Brian Falkner
Publisher: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86945-7
Reviewed by: Amy Lignor
Review Date: August 2011
What if a powerful secret was hidden in the pages of the 'most boring book ever written?' That is exactly what this author has created in one of the most amazing books to hit the YA market in a long time.
Luke and Tommy are young boys who live in Iowa. A completely boring world, where the only interesting things they have to do are the pranks they play on others. Luke is from New Zealand, ending up in Iowa because of a job his father had to take in order to pay the bills. He is very smart. In fact, Luke has been gifted with a perfect memory. All he needs to do is see something once, and it’s in his brain for life.
Tommy is from Iowa. He is a rich kid with lots of dough, and his father supplies him with all the newest technological 'toys' that are on the market. In fact, Tommy wants nothing more than to grow up and become a spy with the CIA, and spends most of his time with his 'bells and whistles' trying to track down bad guys, and learn the ways of a true spy.
One day, the boys decide to pull a prank at their school which lands them in the principal’s office. They are in deep trouble. They are told that they have to spend their summer reading a book and writing a report, in order to stay in school next year. The principal tells them, however, that if they can find where someone - anyone - said that this book was the most boring book in the world, they didn’t have to do the assignment.
Luke runs home and searches, but stumbles across the fact that there was only one most boring book in the world, and it was called Leonardo’s River. This book was like a scientific text, listing all of DaVinci’s experiments and humdrum theories, and there is only one copy of the book remaining somewhere on earth. Luke also finds out that there is a millionaire who has stated he will pay a great deal of money for anyone finding the one copy of Leonardo’s River.
Where is the most boring book in the world? The most boring place in the world. Luke and Tommy soon stumble across the text in their very own University library. The story behind why it’s there and how it came to be is startling, but what’s even more startling is the true secret that’s hidden inside its pages.
Add in time machines, experiments, and ingenious inventions that were made centuries ago, AND an old story of Nazi Germany and what was being built right before the Allies won the "whole thing," and Luke and Tommy soon find themselves in a thrilling mystery that they must solve in order to save the world.
This author has written a captivating novel using true historical events from WWII, and the secrets that DaVinci - the ultimate mind - discovered centuries before the rest of us.
Quill Says: Captivating, thrilling, fun - this story may be about the most boring book in the world, but this one is anything but!
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