2 out of 4 stars
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Lawrence Smith came from a poor farm family. His family worked hard on land belonging to Lord Huntington in England and was barely able to survive. Lawrence was skilled at hunting with a bow and arrow. One day, he happened across some highway robbers surrounding Prince George. Lawrence saved the prince and was rewarded with many plots of land. This changed Lawrence’s whole life. He went out on his own and started working on his newly acquired land.
Lawrence took in a boy and girl whose parents had been killed by a gang of robbers. Lawrence then started his own family by providing support and kindness to them. He married and became very respected and successful in the community. The story described in detail how Lawrence worked the land and came up with some good ideas to use the land and its resources.
While the book focused primarily on Lawrence and described his character the most, there were many other people that were also included. Readers will even get to peek into the background of the gang leader of the highway robbers, Jason.
At the end of the book, the focus was primarily on Lawrence’s brother, Sam, who went to London to work at a shipping company. The ending made me think that there may be a sequel to this book focused on Sam and his adventures.
The book was not edited well. I found spelling errors, missing punctuation, and inconsistent spellings of names all through the book. The many errors are what I liked least about the book, and they prevented me from rating the book very high. Therefore, I rate The Adventures of the Smith Family by R. C. Hand 2 out of 4 stars. If the book had been edited well, I would have rated it a 3 out of 4 stars, because I enjoyed reading most of the book. I really liked the author’s style of telling the story, because it gave me a laid-back feeling. It seemed like an older gentleman was telling the story. I liked the beginning of the story the best because Lawrence saved the prince and became a landowner. I liked how he started out with almost nothing and worked the land to become self-sufficient. I liked Lawrence’s personality and his kindheartedness.
More than half of the book was very interesting and reminded me of stories told from long ago. I liked that the Smith family’s success was built on the quote from page 80: “Treat all people with dignity, be honest in your business dealings and work as if you were going to conquer the world.” Lawrence seemed to have a big dose of innocence and yet could fight and defend against enemies very well.
I did not like the long parts of the book that were quite unexciting and seemed to drag with many details. Therefore, people who want more action and like fantasy books may like this book the least. People who don’t mind to slow down and read about the way it was in the old days of England and working the land, may like this book the most.
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The Adventures of the Smith Family
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