Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: I read this out of an interest in popular children’s fantasy. The Artemis Fowl books had gained enough popularity to show up on my radar (and I am around children basically none of the time), so I figured I might as well check it out. Artemis is a 12-year-old criminal mastermind with a faithful bodyguard named Butler, a missing father, and a mother who has completely lost touch with reality. Despite this, there remains a good deal of humor in Artemis’s kidnapping of a fairy and her people’s attempts to retrieve her. Artemis, while believable as a criminal genius, is not very convincing as a 12-year-old boy. Holly the fairy is pretty one-dimensional, but her comrads Root and the centaur Foaly are entertaining enough to keep the plot moving forward. In short, this is a decent story for children but not engaging enough to convince this adult reader to check out the sequels.