Cewek, sidang pembunuhan, saksi rahasia!Belakangan hidup menjadi kian rumit bagi TheoPepatah yang menyebutkan buah tak jauh dari pohonnya, sangat cocok untuk sosok Theodore “ Teddy”Boone. Hidup selama 13 tahun dengan seorang pengacara real estate, Woods Boone, sang ayah serta ibu seorang pengacara perceraian (selalu dari pihak istri), Marcella Boone, membuat Theo menjadi anak yang paling tahu seluk beluk hukum dibandingkan yang lainnya. Plus tambahan seorang paman yang juga pengacara. Teman-temannya bahkan tak akan heran jika wajahnya terpasang di buku petunjuk pengacara dan hakimIa mengenal dengan baik sebagian besar ruang sidang yang ada, mengenal banyak hakim, polisi, panitera. Serta tahu tentang banyak hal seputar hukum. Tak heran jika ia bisa membuat sang hakim menyediakan tempat duduk strategi untuk seluruh Kelas Pemerintahannya di ruang sidang yang penuh sesak. Maklum kasus yang disidangkan adalah kasus yang menarik minat seluruh penduduk kota.Walau bangga karena sang anak sudah menunjukkan minat dan bakat untuk menjadi seorang pengacara handal, namun kadang kala kedua orang tuanya ingin Theo menikmati masa muda dengan lebih “wajar” bermain game, jalan-jalan, berkencan. Bukannya membuka kantor pengacara di sebelah kantor orang tuanya dan memberikan nasihat hukum kepada mereka yang membutuhkannya.Nasihat hukum yang diberikan Theo umumnya hanya bersifat sederhana saja, diberikan berdasarkan pengetahuannya seputar hukum, sesuatu yang tidak diketahui orang banyak. Namun bagi orang lain, seakan Theo memberikan nasehat di bidang hukum, semacam menjadi ahli hukum mereka. Dan Theo mengerjakannya dengan senang hati. Satu lagi klien yang puas, adalah motonya.Saat ia bersama teman-teman dari Kelas Pemerintahan mendapat kesempatan menghadiri sebuah sidang, ia mengikuti jalannya sidang dengan tekun. Ia bisa merasakan ada sesuatu yang hilang dari kasus itu. Tanpa disengaja ia terlibat dengan kasus itu. Theo menemukan seseorang yang bisa memutar balikkan seluruh jalannya persidangan. Theo berada dalam kondisi yang tidak terduga, ia bertemu dengan orang yang mengetahui bagaimana sesungguhnya peristiwa itu terjadi! Suka atau tidak, Theo terlibat!Masalahnya ia hanya seorang anak berusia 13 tahun, siapa yang mempercayai dirinya. Belum lagi hal-hal lain yang menghantuinya seperti bagaimana ia harus bertindak, apa yang harus dilakukannya terlebih dahulu, siapa yang bisa membantunya. Termasuk apa yang akan terjadi pada dirinya. Tanpa bisa dihindari Theo sudah masuk ke dalam arena hukum.Dalam buku ini, ada beberapa bagian yang membuat saya terseyum sendiri. Adegan mengenai sang pemilik Deli yang suka memarahi pengunjung yang masih nongkrong di meja mereka walau sudah lama selesai makanan, benar-benar mengingatkan pada cerita-cerita John lainnya. Lalu saat paman Theo menayakan apakah Bahasa Cina sudah diajarkan di sekolah. Ini menandakan keberadaan bangsa itu sudah mulai diperhitungkan.Terakhir mengenai klub membaca ibunya. Bayangkan sang ibu sering terpaksa membaca buku yang tidak disukainya hanya untuk bisa hadir ke club buku. Jadi ingat, sudah lama saya jarang membaca buku yang memang saya ingini tanpa terpengaruh rekomendasi siapapun.Setelah sekian lama, akhirnya buku ini hadir memuaskan kerinduan pembaca di tanah air. Khusus untuk buku ini, terlihat sekali pembaca yang dituju adalah kaum muda alias ABG. Buku ini walau tetap terasa sentuhan seorang John Grisham, namun uraian sebuah kasus serta efek ketegangan yang biasa kita peroleh saat membaca buku-buku John Grisham tidak sedasyat biasanya. Buku ini cenderung lebih ringan dibandingkan buku-buku lainnya. Selain itu wajah yang biasa menghiasi halaman sampul juga tidak ada.Dari buku ini, para pembaca diajak mengenal mengenai bagaimana sistem hukum berjalan. Bagaimana para pekerja hukum secara profesional. Bekerja. Sesaat mereka bermusuhan, namun selanjutnya mereka berteman baik, tidak ada rasa dendam.Mereka dibayar untuk bekerja secara profesional, dan agar bisa melakukannya dengan baik mereka harus menanggalkan perasaan pribadi.DI buku ini juga ditemukan beberapa istilah yangs ering digunakand alam olah raga golf. Namun bagi yang tidak berolah raga golf, iistilah tersebut f mungkin akan terasa membingungkan. Seandainya penerjemah memberikan keterangan tambahan, tentu akan membuat pembaca lebih menikmati buku ini.Sang tukang cerita terlahir dengan nama John Ray Grisham. Lahir di Jonesboro, Arkansas, 8 Februari 1955. Saat muda, ia bermain sepak bola Amerika dengan posisi quarterback. Kecintaannya pada sepak bola Amerika terlihat pada latar belakang pengacara ciptaannya, beberapa digambarkan juga pemain sepak bola Amerika. Setelah lulus dari Mississippi State University dan Ole Miss Law School, ia berpraktek sebagai pengacara dan juga pernah menjadi anggota Mississipi House of Representatives. Ia dijuluki the fastest selling novelist in American history. Pelatih kelompok base ball anak-anak Little Leagur ini telah meninggalkan praktek hukumannya agar dapat menulis secara fulltime. Bersama istrinya Renee dan dua anaknya, ia bergantian tinggal di pertaniannya di Mississipi dan perkebunannya di dekat Charloteesville,VA. Karyanya meliputi fiksi hukum, fiksi non hokum serta nonfiksi. Fiksi hukum seperti: * Saat Untuk Membunuh (A Time To Kill, 1989) * Biro Hukum (The Firm, 1991) * The Pelican Brief (The Pelican Brief, 1992) * Klien (The Client, 1993) * Kamar Gas (The Chamber, 1994) * Sang Pembawa Mukjizat (The Rainmaker, 1995) * Juri Pilihan (The Runaway Jury, 1996) * Sang Partner (The Partner, 1997) * Pengacara Jalanan (The Street Lawyer, 1998) * Surat Wasiat (The Testament, 1999) * Majelis (The Brethern, 2000) * Panggilan (The Summons, 2002) * Ganti Rugi (The King Of Torts, 2003) * Anggota Juri Terakhir (The Last Juror, 2004) * Sang Broker (The Broker, 2005) * The Appeal (2008), ISBN 0-385-51504-7 * The Associate (27 Januari 2009), ISBN 0-7393-2823-9Fiksi nonhukum * Rumah Bercat Putih (A Painted House, 2001) * Absen Natal (Skipping Christmas, 2002) * Sang Pelatih (Bleachers, 2003) * Playing for Pizza (2007), ISBN 0-385-52500-1Nonfiksi * The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006), ISBN 0-385-51723-8Untuk yang ingin lebih mengenal John Ray Grisham bisa mengunjungi http://www.jgrisham.com/ atau untuk lebih mengenal sosok Thedore Boone bias diintip di theodoreboone.com
(Copied from my blog)Hey, when you were a kid, did you ever feel compelled to seek legal advice? Or play golf?Yeah, I didn’t think so.So you can imagine my confusion over why international bestselling author of legal thrillers John Grisham‘s new foray into kid lit has so far scored 3.35 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. Half his book, aimed at eight- to twelve-year-olds, is about things like how to avoid foreclosure, which lawyer in town to phone when your brother-in-law is picked up on a DUI, and what a mistrial is. Oh, and golf.I’m a grown-up who has sought legal advice, and I was bored to tears. And not just because I’m inclined to prefer kid-lit books like, say, Coraline.Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer is about Theo, a thirteen-year-old only child whose parents are a tax lawyer (father) and a divorce lawyer (mother). Theo is so obsessed with the law that his major concern, more than the tough time his female best friend who appears on only a handful of pages is going through, is whether he wants to be a brilliant trial lawyer when he grows up, or a sage judge.Know what would have made this book great? A good caper. Theo getting caught up with his friends in some mystery or another, that would be solved only when he’s able to put his out-of-the-ordinary legal knowledge to good use.Unfortunately, the caper in this novel was… not a good one. Theo’s mid-size town is experiencing its first murder trial in recent memory, and though everyone thinks the accused is guilty of murdering his wife, the prosecution has a thin case based only on circumstantial evidence (oh yes, no worries, Theo defines that for us). Mid-story, Theo becomes privy to evidence that’s sure to sway the verdict, and he has to figure out what to do.That’s it.No investigations with his motley crew of friends (he doesn’t have one). No snooping around dark offices. No surprises. At all.I don’t think I’ve ever read a kids’ book that so completely failed to engage my imagination. And as you know, I have a very vivid imagination. My imagination will engage at the merest hint of inspiration. And I just don’t think I’d be alone amongst ten-year-olds in not being remotely interested in court reporting or golf.So, okay. That’s the plot. I haven’t left much out in my short description. Now the rest of it.Go read what Charlotte Abbott wrote over on her Book Maven blog about how important it is for an author to show, not tell*. Oh my gods, kids, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer is about 250 out of 263 pages of telling. I felt like I was slogging through half this book. I was so bored.The characters were barely caricatures, so thin and so poorly developed I didn’t care much about them at all. Including Theo. I kinda wanted to punch Theo in the face, but then I realized it’s Grisham I wanted to punch in the face. He’s created the dullest kid character I’ve ever encountered. Rather than creating a likable precocious protagonist, he created a shallow know-it-all. He could have done so much better. He could have made Theo, oh I don’t know, laugh. And interact with his peers in important ways. You know, experience believable conflicts. But he didn’t.In fact, I got the impression Grisham doesn’t really understand kids. His strategy for writing a kids book seemed to be to dilute, simplify, and sometimes outright dumb down a story he might otherwise write very well for adults. Throughout the book, I had the distinct impression the author was smirking at the ten-year-old me, implying, “Oh, you wouldn’t understand this, so we’ll just cut it out or gloss over it.” Too bad he didn’t solve that problem by writing about things the ten-year-old me would understand. If he’d done that, this book might have seemed thick and creamy instead of runny and bland.It seemed to me Grisham’s goal wasn’t so much to write a good story as it was to write a legal primer for the pre-teen set. Why on earth he thinks this is needed is beyond me. But I couldn’t shake the impression that’s what his goal was. So no surprise that I felt at times like I was reading a text book – a text book that was talking down to me.Here’s a note I jotted down in a fit of pique: “A better lesson would be to not call women ‘ladies’.” Grisham totally calls all the women in the book ladies. He also casts them in antediluvian roles – court reporter, secretary, receptionist, file clerk, housekeeper, and the one female lawyer (Theo’s mother) is a divorce lawyer who frequently has crying women in her office.For a master of legal thrillers, Grisham seems to have decided kids can’t handle suspense. He sets the pace in this book like a bad television show tries desperately to create a sense of drama through orchestration when its writers and actors can’t quite pull it off. The one bit of foreshadowing I noticed came out of the blue at the end of a section describing a part of the murder trial. Apropos of nothing, he narrates, “There was something missing in the case, and based on what had already been said in court, Theo suspected that the mystery might never be solved.” People, there was no mention of mystery before this.Grisham also seems uncomfortable handling race and poverty issues in this book, which is surprising considering his adeptness at treating both those topics in his books for grown-ups. He actually refers to the poorer part of town as “the lesser part.” Sigh.I read A Time to Kill, Grisham’s first novel and the one some argue to be his best, when I was in high school. My recommendation for anyone thinking of buying Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer for the tween in their life is to wait till they’re fifteen and give them some of Grisham‘s better work instead.—* I’ve enjoyed the first two books in the Millennium trilogy – if I’m tolerant of Stieg Larsson doing so much telling and not so much showing, you can imagine how little showing there is in Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer.Penguin Canada sent me a review copy of this book, gratis.
What do You think about Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (2010)?
Overall, I enjoyed this audio version of John Grisham's YA book Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer read by actor, Richard Thomas (John-Boy!). It was a solid introduction to the character of Theodore Boone and his family & friends (and a primer on "The Law", although a touch pedantic & dry). The story could have used a bit more tension, some action, and some thrills to make for a little excitement. I thought for sure that Theo was going to find himself in some kind of jeopardy, especially with the creepy Omar Cheepe and company watching him, but that promising threat of danger essentially amounted to zip, nada, nothing - how disappointing. While realistic, the ending was more than a tad anticlimactic . . . it left me with a feeling of, "That's it?".Light & entertaining with a charming and professional narrator - it was an enjoyable way to pass a few hours doing household chores* (like laundry, dusting & vacuuming, and washing the dishes). I plan to "listen" to more books from Grisham's Theodore Boone series to see if Theo is able to keep himself out of trouble while assisting his "clients" with their legal problems! *Note: The Penguin "playaway" audio book of Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer was small enough to fit in a pocket, leaving my hands free to get a lot done, especially by being able to move from room to room.
—☺Trish
Sometimes I need to put some defense mechanism in place in order to finish a book. Mostly it is because the book is too damn terrible for my brains to process normally. This was one of them. The delusion I kept feeding myself - Theo Boone is not really a child prodigy. This book, instead, is about a mentally challenged socially awkward adult lawyer whose brain capsized and is now stuck as a thirteen year old who is creating an elaborate fantasy about his adventures. The secondary characters are translucent enough for this to actually make sense. Words cannot describe how much I did not like this book despite being a John Grisham fan. Or maybe my dislike was because I am a John Grisham fan. But my problem with this book is clear:Theodore Boone was one of the most condescending, dislikable, conceited and with the most egotistical among the protagonists I had had the misfortune of reading. He did not sound like a thirteen year old. He sounded like an adult who thinks that dumbing himself down makes him sound like a teenager. That is not true. Also he talked like this. He talked in very short sentences. Even when he talked in longer sentences he thought it would not make him sound repetitive and redundant. The writing did not flow smoothly. I made lots of notes about that. And do not even get me started on the characters. They were two dimensional and either victims of Theo Boone's condescension or not present or mentioned in the story. Stereotyping was rampant and very, very annoying. Do NOT even get me started on the plot. It was overtly simplistic and hardly interesting. I know as a MG book it IS supposed to somewhat simple - but I'd rather it have at least something concrete going on. I do know the book is a part of a series but the first book should be able to stand on its own as well. Kid Lawyer could not. And though there are countless things that bother me about this book the biggest problem I have with it is named Theodore Boone. It is possible to have an adult write a believable preteen without sounding stupid. JK Rowling and Rick Riordan do it all the time. It is even possible make him a child prodigy and special above all. But it should be limited within the bounds of realism - and I'm not talking of the world-building but characterization. Theodore Boone sounded like a prick who knew too much about the system - and I'd like to believe that sounding like a prick and being a lawyer do not go hand in hand. Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective agrees. And this is worse because John Grisham is such an amazing author whose characters in his other books do not sound like pricks when they are not supposed to. The mind blowing opening statements by the lawyers in THIS book shows that - and also shows that if we had more scenes where we did not have to deal with Theo Boone directly I might have ended up liking this after all. John Grisham should not be writing young adult books. That's not where his skills lie. 1 StarThis book is suitable for aspiring lawyers the way Romeo & Juliet is an awe-inspiring romance. Tragic, really.
—Shambhawi P.
It's been a long time since I read a Grisham. This is a Young Adult story from Grisham, reading it I recognize Grisham's easy and smooth storytelling writing skills in the legal arena. Made me think of The Client too, with a young lad as the leading player in the story, loved The Client. Picked it up at the airport, thinking, ok, this might be a relaxing read in between all the heavy stuff ;-) Quite an enjoyable easy read, about Theo, son of the Boone's, both lawyers. Theo gets mixed up in a big murder trial.... I need to look into Grisham's books of the last years and find the best ones to read. I do find his books entertaining.
—Annet
