‘The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp’ by Rick Yancey
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp is a slow going and long book about a boy called Alfred Kropp who is a normal high school student. The trouble starts when his uncle talks him into a get rich quick scheme to steal the legendary sword of King Arthur, Excalibur. As the fight between good and evil begins, he falls in love with a girl, finds out who he really is and that the world is not what he thought it was.
At the beginning of the book the story line is slow and the plot goes nowhere until Chapter 3 where the story line speeds up and becomes less boring. Once the adventure begins it becomes an OK book because it goes over every day things that teenagers go through like bullying, fitting in and that little bit of love story in the book.
In my opinion the book is still boring and overall I still didn’t like the book. But it reminded me of the Da Vinci code: a little adventure, history and a little bit of conspiracy. I would recommend this book to people that like a bit of adventure, romance, history and some conspiracy elements. If you do, this book is for you. Dakota, Year 9
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The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp is an action/adventure book written by Rick Yancey.
The book’s plot is about the title character, the eponymous hero of the novel: Alfred Kropp. The plot involves Alfred retrieving the ancient sword, Excalibur, from the hands of his enemy, Mogat, who wishes to do evil with the sword.
Immediately, the book throws down most of their character’s personalities and the stereotypes that come with them. The book’s titular character echoes stereotypes from books such as Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, for example: Both Harry and Alfred are 11 year old boys with some “special” ability and both are orphans living with their uncle. The book uses these techniques to quickly and effectively identify with its target audience.
Alfred is called upon to retrieve a stolen item from his uncle’s Boss, where monks attack him. However, Alfred defend himself against them and manages to escape from the building, where his uncle is shot and killed by his employer Mogat and the sword is taken from him.
Alfred moves into the home of a foster family, where he is bored and spends a lot of his time in the city, often alone, dealing with common issues of kids and teenagers of not fitting in. Eventually, he is found and put on another quest to retrieve the sword from Mogat who wishes to do evil with it.
The pacing of the book is poor. The book begins excitedly, but then lowers down and is often a chore to read in the middle of the book, but it excitedly picks up again.
The book itself has a lot of laughs and a lot of action, but older readers will most likely not find the more simple humour and action of this book funny or exciting. It uses less descriptive language and is blunt and concise in its descriptions.
In conclusion, the book knows who its target audience is and writes solely to them. Despite the number of plot clichés and stereotypes as well as the poor prose and pacing of the book, the book could be a lot of fun for younger readers. I recommend the book only to kids from the age of 9-13 who will get the book’s humour and be able to overlook the many weaknesses of the book. Camilo, Year 9
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If you have ever wondered what a modern day knight would look like, this book has the answers.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp starts off with a teenager named Alfred Kropp living with his Uncle Farrell, who works as a security guard. Alfred attends high school, just like any other teenager, but finds it difficult to fit in. Alfred and his Uncle Farrell live a normal life, but not for much longer. Suddenly, a man named Arthur Myers calls Uncle Farrell, offering him one million dollars for the return of a sword, which was stolen by Uncle Farrell’s boss. The quest is handed over to Alfred, meaning that it’s now his job to steal the sword back. The story is now set and from then involves many twists that will leave you not wanting to put the book down, with a teenage boy saving the world with characters like knights and monks.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp is a fun, humorous fantasy book that I enjoyed but wouldn’t pick up to read again. I would recommend this book to a 12+ teenage boy who loves fantasy and enjoys reading a lot. Although the book has some great twists, the introduction was slow and should’ve started off with a bang. Lucky enough towards the end of the book it became more interesting and edgy. Overall I would rate the book a 7 out of 10, this is because I think the book should have started off as good as the end. The reason I recommend it to the age group of 12+ is because of the situations that wouldn’t be suitable for any age group below like the brutal deaths throughout the book. James, Year 9
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This book is well written and includes several twists to keep you guessing what is going to happen next, however this isn’t necessarily a good thing. The length of the book means that by the end you are getting frustrated at how nothing seems to happen how you expect.
It has plenty of action and adventure, however people who like that sort of book usually enjoy a short easy to follow read. This book was anything but. I found myself forcing myself to read it to the end which is not enjoyable.
Despite its faults, I did enjoy when it replaced something stereotypical with something better such as when Alfred stole the sword he was attacked by monks instead of armed guards. I found it amusing as well as leaving me wanting to read on and find out why monks were guarding the sword.
Overall, this book would be enjoyable for people who like long, hard to follow actions, however most of this book did not appeal to me at all. Jake, Year 9