DWD's Reviews

Published in 2017 by Scholastic Synopsis The DC Comics Secret Hero Society series s a re-imagining of the DC universe with a comic twist.  The first book in this series featured a Hogwarts-type school where only children with special talents are invited. Young Bruce Wayne suspects that there is more going on in the school than meets the eye and his new friends Clark Kent and Diana Prince join him to investigate. Fort Solitude is book 2 in the series. The trio are invited to a special summer camp. They notice that this camp has an off vibe. Then, campers start to disappear. And, there are constant warnings about a scarecrow that stalks the woods at night. The trio adds in a kid that runs really, really fast, a kid that wins every target shooting contest, and a kid with robotic implants - Flash, Green Arrow, and Cyborg. Clark also finds a journal with detailed notes from a girl that attended a previous session of this same summer camp - Lois Lane. Using the clues from Lois' no...

Published by Scholastic in 2016. Study Hall of Justice is a YA graphic novel that is a re-imagining of the DC universe with a comic twist.  Synopsis Imagine a Hogwarts-type school where only children with special talents are invited. Young Bruce Wayne suspects that there is more going on in the school than meets the eye. The teachers are odd, not only quirky, but sometimes malicious - increasingly so. Bruce starts to investigate, sometimes wearing a special costume to hide in the shadows, he begins to suspect that there is a malevolent figure running the school. He also encounters two other students who are looking into the school leadership - Clark Kent and Diana Prince. My Review While this book is aimed at middle schoolers, adult super fans of DC Comics will appreciate the easter eggs that abound. For example, Bruce Wayne's locker has shark repellent (from the 1960's Adam West movie) and movie stills from The Gray Ghost, a movie that inspires young Bruce Wayne to create his...

Published in January of 2026 by Hourly History. John Belushi has always known as a cautionary tale for me - an amazing talent that quickly rose to national prominence and then died of a drug overdose just when things really got going. Hourly History specializes in short histories and biographies that take about an hour to read. In this case, this biography gives a lot of details about his early life, but simply fails to give the reader a sense of what Belushi or the characters he created on Saturday Night Live was like.  It does no better with any of the four movies. Belushi only made 4 movies, but two of them are classics -  The Blues Brothers and Animal House. You would think that there would have been a lot more about those movies and a lot less about his first really run-down apartment in New York City. I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5. This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here: John Belushi: A Life from Beginning to End .

Published in 2024 by Little, Brown Ink. An NPR Best Book of the Year. K is a 10-12 year old boy living in an unknown European city in what appears to be the late 1800s. K Is in Trouble is a graphic novel that tells of his misadventures.  In a series of stories, K runs into trouble with a talking fish, he meets a talking insect, and finds an intelligent crow. But, his real difficulties are with adults who don't listen. The adults at school don't listen, the police don't listen, the mayor doesn't listen, and his parents especially don't listen.  I liked the art, but the stories were so-so. The last story is the best by far.  I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. Not bad, not great. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: K Is in Trouble by Gark Klement . 

Published by Penguin Audio in 2025. Read by the author, Brian Recker. Duration: 6 hours, 40 minutes. Unabridged.   My cousin reviewed Hell Bent on Goodreads and his review made me very excited to read it as well.  I just re-read that review and I am still excited to read the book he described. The actual book is solid, but took a long time to get going and seemed like it was put together in an odd way - almost backwards and I think that diluted its strength. Recker starts with a lengthy discussion of what happens if you fall out of your tribe's accepted truths. In this case, his tribe is American Evangelical Christianity, but you may have had a similar falling out with another group. For example, I have had a falling out with a lot of friends and family because I left my political tribe (I am a never-Trump Republican.) This part was simply too long for me. I was far more interested in the actual discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of those that argue in fav...

Published by Amazon Original Stories in 2026. Book 1 of the Deadly Ambition Series. Synopsis The Deadly Ambition Series is a collection of six short stories about people who push too far in pursuit of their ambitions and reap the tragic rewards.  Honey Becket is the fourth wife of a naracistic tech billionaire. Technically, she is his widow. The story begins with Honey Becket riding in an Uber on the way to her husband's elaborately staged funeral.  This is a near future sci-fi story - there is discussion about how rare it is that the Uber driver is an actual person and not a self-driving car. Artificial Intelligence is clearly a much larger part of day to day life than it is in early 2026.  Honey Becket is not against technology, but she still enjoys doing things for herself. When she gets to the funeral, she goes against the plan and invites the other three ex-wives to sit with her up front. And that's when things get interesting... My Review What I like best about thi...

Originally published in 2012. Tony James Slater is a restless Englishman who loves to go out and see the world. The problem with all of this going out and seeing the world is that it costs a lot of money and he doesn't really have a lot of money. Slater wanted to see South America so he applied to work at a wild animal rescue in Ecuador in exchange for food and a bed in a bunkhouse. Slater has almost no experience working with animals and absolutely zero experience working with wild animals - but the rescue center is powered by an enthusiastic but largely unskilled labor pool, so he fits right in. That Bear At My Pants is written in a series of small chapters (more than 60) that are also broken down into smaller sections. Its design makes it perfect as a bathroom reader.  His experiences reminded me of a much more wild and dangerous version of my experiences working at a summer camp almost 40 years ago. That camp also was powered by an enthusiastic but unskilled but largely unskil...