Book Review from a Middle-School Reader: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Once again, I bring you (with permission) a book review from my oldest child. He just finished reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and had a great time writing his thoughts. I’ve shared them here as they were written. Enjoy!

My Dear Watson, I do believe that this book is quite good, albeit complex at times. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is an extremely famous collection of stories, and a very intriguing read at that.

Sherlock Holmes needs no introduction, though I do believe that I do. My name is Simon, and I recently read through The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. And, having done so for the sole purpose of school, I am thus writing a report about the tales within this collection.

I must say, I quite enjoyed this book, especially the shorter, less criminally involved cases such as that of The Blue Carbuncle and The Five Orange Pips. Very Nice indeed!

Of course, I cannot even mention Sherlock without mentioning Watson, and I actually very much appreciated his narrative of Holmes’ adventures and exploits, as it essentially acted as a translation of Holmes’ thought process for the average person. I give my thanks to Doyle for having the thoughts which led to Watson’s creation.

However, I believe it is now time to address the elephant- or rather, the hound– in the room. The Hound of the Baskervilles is arguably the most famous Holmes story of them all, and while hard to follow at times, it always maintained a sense of foreboding mystery up until the final, dreaded confrontation. I won’t say much, in case some of you reading this have yet to read the story itself, but I will say that it was a very interesting and exciting story which always kept me on the edge of my seat.

Funnily enough, I actually preferred the other stories in the book over The Hound, simply because of the earlier stories’ lighthearted nature. Not to say I didn’t enjoy The Hound of the Baskervilles, I merely found it to be more serious than I was used to.

Overall, the evidence all points to one conclusion: I enjoyed this book, and I think you might too. Elementary, my dear readers!