Bighead & Cornrow. Trouble in New Orleans

Moon Jones & Brenda Ray
Solmar Publishing Co.
ISBN 097134728X
Reviewed by Amy Belusiti (age 8) for Reader Views (6/07)

This is a fun book to read.  Bighead and Cornrow are kids from France.  The funny part is that they look like real kids, but they are not. 

They are really police officers from another world, but people think they are from France. They are rappers.

They live in Louisiana. Bad things are happening in New Orleans.  Scary things happen.  The FBI hires Bighead and Cornrow to help solve the problem.

“Bighead and Cornrow” was a good book.  I liked it.  I didn’t know what will happen next.  It was a good mystery to try to solve. Most times I couldn’t figure it out first.

Reviewed by Deb Shunamon for Reader Views (3/06)

This novel has a comfortable, urban feel to it that will appeal to pre- teen readers. In addition to protecting earth’s adults from 5th Dimension bad guys, the two brothers “Bighead and Cornrow” and their new friends are used to portray the social and familial relationships of 8-10 year olds, and also to illustrate the variety of races and cultures that make up modern New Orleans society.

Unfortunately, it is because of all the above that this is also a book that needs to pick a direction and do a lot more editing. Although the back cover write-up advertises an action story and the book opens with a Prologue escapade that hooks the reader immediately, chapters devoted to character presentation and relationships soon fill most of the pages. These chapters contained much of the authors’ wonderful right-on-the-money youth humour and mind-set and were delightful to read, but by mid-book I was wondering if we would ever get back to the action.

I burst out laughing several times while reading this book. Its heroes are cool, the characters are diverse and hilarious, situations illustrate the authors’ clear understanding of kids of this age, and everyone and everything is current. As for the writing, however, there are three things in particular that I think the authors need to work on. (1) Deliberately having the book’s characters reflect multiple cultures, races, and socio-economic groups is admirable, but this information needs to be presented much more subtly. For example, outright describing the skin colour of characters as they’re introduced became irritating and predictable. (2) Readers of 8-10 years of age can generally handle more complex, sophisticated sentences. (3) Finally, the scriptwriting style of writing (and tense changes) in many paragraphs was confusing. Abrupt changes in grammar and writing style made me spend far too much time thinking about mechanics instead of enjoying the story.

Nevertheless, “Bighead and Cornrow” is a book with heart and I really enjoyed its humour. The fabulous illustrations supported the words well, and with more editing and proofing I think this could become a very popular book. I liked these heroes, and I look forward to reading about them again.

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