JuniorBookWorm.com

Ravi's book review of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

 

  This is a little marvel of a book, filled with sadness and happiness. It is about a concentration camp, in Germany, at the time of Hitler. The two stars of this book are Bruno, a boy of nine. He is German and, at the start of the book, he is living in Berlin, but his father gets promoted in the army and they find themselves moving to the countryside.

  The other star of this book comes later. His name is Shmuel. He is a Jew and lives in the concentration camp; he is also nine.

  They become friends by meeting at the fence that surrounds the concentration camp and stops the Jews from getting out.

  The book is shrouded in uncertainty, which builds the tension for the final punch that the book delivers in the

final pages. The book will stay in your mind for a long time after you have read it.

    By Ravi Harinder Veriah Jacques

We agree with Ravi. It was also very good of him not to spoil the shocking ending. It has been made into a film, but I have not seen it yet. Many people were moved by it, I heard. But BBC's Anne Frank seems to have made more of an impression. The Holocaust has inspired many novelists but having the story told my the son of a Nazi commandant was truly original.

Is he old enough to read that?

I was amazed when I called upon boys from Years 6 and 8, at a London school, to list their top ten books of 2008 to find the following list. I was really impressed by the sophistication and length of some of these books. I was delighted that a boy of ten or eleven is reading Dickens and Orwell. In an age when instant amusement can be found on the internet, it is a relief to know that boys are still reading and reading terrific books.
 To get a sense of this child, I urge you to read his review of the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which we have previously reviewed in audio form.

1.  The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.

2.  BRISINGR by Christopher Paolini.

3.  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

4.  Hard Times by Charles Dickens.

5.  Animal Farm by George Orwell.

6.  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

7.  Crusade by Elizabeth Laird.

8.  The Great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

9.  Singing for Mrs Pettigrew by Michael Morpurgo.

10. Lionboy, The Chase by Zizou Corder.

 

 

World of M

World of M featuring Wolverine: Graphic Novel Review

by Noah Jackson

For the people who don’t know (and I’m sure many don’t), Marvel Comics recently published a comics’ event in eight parts known as House of M, affecting the Marvel Universe greatly. Loved by some and detested by others, the series showed a world dominated by the villainous Magneto and his mutant family, brought about by the Scarlet Witch following the ‘Avengers Disassembled’ arc in Avengers # 500-503. A story of this magnitude was bound to spawn spin-offs, which it did. World of M is one of these seven spin-offs and is, according to the acclaimed comics’ magazine Wizard, the best of them.

World of M features four stories starring various characters in their House of M form. Chronicled in Wolverine # 33-35, Black Panther # 7, The Pulse # 10 and Captain America # 10, these tales tell of fan-favourite characters turned changed for the House of M event.

  The bulk of the book concentrates on House of M Wolverine (as will be seen in the upcoming X-Men 3: The Last Stand played by Hugh Jackman), a disillusioned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who turns to drugs and alcohol to quench his sorrows but is soon put back on track when he and his partner Mystique are attacked by Nick Fury, a human S.H.I.E.L.D. colonel who had a long-running enmity with Wolverine before his apparent demise. The story, told amazingly by Wolverine veteran

Daniel Way, is probably the best of the five in the book, with brilliant art, an exciting plot filled with mystery and excitement (the revelation that Mystique is masquerading as Fury for one) and interesting takes on the well-known characters Wolverine, Mystique, Nick Fury and Sebastian Shaw.

  The Black Panther story is eye candy, all right, but the plot is terrible. The story concentrates on Quicksilver’s (the son of Magneto) attempts to seduce the ruler of Africa Black Panther’s wife, Storm but for parts, one does not know whether the story is comprised of imagined or real events. Superhero after superhero make cameos but that does not make the story any better. The only interesting bit in my opinion is the assassination attempt by Sabretooth, a mutant killer, on Black Panther’s life, which involves a decapitation and a lot of blood. On the whole, this story should be given amiss, unless you wish to see a display of above average comic book art.

  I do not have much to say about the The Pulse story. It has an interesting plot, focusing on the House of M version of the reporter Jessica Jones and the back-from-the-dead Avenger Hawkeye. The portrayal of her confusion and his angst is good enough to take one’s eye away from the mediocre art.

The final story about Captain America is a mixed bag. The art is good but the story, all though thought-provoking is not actually very interesting. It comprises of the reminiscences of House of M Captain America, a human superhero in a world where mutants are the upper class. The story goes through his days as a big time hero during World War II to his uncomfortable married life to his senior citizenship, during which humans become less and less equal to the mutants and he becomes less and less faithful to the government. Too much small print makes the story squint-worthy and too much happens in such a short time. Also, I must say that I’d sooner have Cap fighting Baron Zemo in an exploding rocket than receiving medals as a doddering old man.

  All in all, I think that World of M is good but not the best of graphic novels. I’d buy it for the fantastic Wolverine story alone but it has to be said that the less competent back-up stories might dissuade the average comics’ buyer. I cannot disprove Wizard’s comment that this is the best House of M tie-in as I have not read the others but I can say this: if the Wolverine story stood alone it would definitely prove itself to be the best Marvel graphic novel of the year so far.

The Boy Who Lost His Face

This review is by our latest junior junior book worm reviewer:

Freddie Wright

Curses are a bad thing. Some people believe in them, some do not. This novel will be more compelling to those who believe in curses. In school there are always groups; groups of cool people and those who are not so cool. This novel is about one boy who used to be in the cool gang but was cursed and from then on he began to slide into the category of not being cool at all.

She was old and crotchety, an easy target for the cool gang. They walked up her drive and then ran up to her. Swore at her, tipped her off her rocking chair, poured lemonade all over her head and then stole her cane and ran off. David was the last to leave. He turned round and gave her the finger. As he walked smoothly out of the gates and towards the gang, he heard her shout out a curse. “May you be cursed for ever more.”

The next few days were manic. He had walked into class with his fly down and then as he was asking out a girl his trousers fell down. He soon was not able to cope with all of these embarrassments and went to see the old woman. She said that everyday he lost a little bit of his face (not literally). This meant that every day he was becoming more and more of a loser. He also noticed that part of his face was on the old lady’s wall. She said that as he lost his face she was making it into a mask on her wall.

The main character in this story is David. The novelist makes you sympathise with him as he has to face all of the cool peoples’ taunts. The effect of all this on him is mostly depression because he is bullied at school and that he was cursed. This is a book under the genre of modern day life. It is set in the present and the events that unfold in this novel could well indeed happen to anybody today.

A really funny book, by one of my favourite authors.

If you like the sound of this book, check out Louis Sachar's site.

Stratford Boys by Jan Mark reviewed by Noah Jackson age 11

Stratford Boys by Jan Mark is a pun on common life in Elizabethan England mixed with a fantasised vision of what a young William Shakespeare would have been like. It is the story of two boys whose mission is to put on a play and please the masses. To quote the blurb, it is a 'riotous romp through Elizabethan England'. If you wish to discover more about this 'romp', then read on.

The story is set in 1580, the year when the last Corpus Christi plays had come and gone. Corpus Christi was a Catholic festival, which was abolished when Henry VIII broke from Rome, which happened in early summer. Around this time, Biblical plays were held, much to the delight of the average commoner. When the book begins, the sixteen-year-old Will Shakespeare, an inexperienced glover's son, decides to provide entertainment for the bored village since the

Corpus Christi plays are gone. Along with his friend Adrian and Adrian's Puritan cousin Hugh, he writes an adaptation of an ancient play of the Cain and Abel story which all too soon morphs into something else. Soon it turns out that writing the tragedy finally set in Hungary was the least of their problems. With schoolboys combating workmen, a 'Muscovite' with a dying harpist who just happens to be his best friend and uptight amateur players refusing to play women, the director Adrian and Will soon discover that producing a play, even with a council grant, is a difficult thing to do.

  The plot is funny and amusing, which helps the story along, but parts, especially the death of David, the Welsh harpist, are dull and slightly pointless when compared to most of the book. There is a lot of direct speech but unlike in some books, the author manages to keep conversations going without one having to reread the last page or so to find out who exactly is talking. There is a lot of archaic speech also (thank goodness the story is not told in the first person) but one can mostly understand it. Some of the jokes that appear throughout the story are very crude but the book deals with common people, not the nobility.

  The characters that appear in the tale are, although funny, mostly written very similarly. Few people differ from each other, in fact I often lost track of scenes because all that differed between the people was their names. Few people are unique and they are not, on the whole, main characters. Will seems intelligent, of course, because he is the young Shakespeare but apart from that, the other characters are generally dumb.

  The story is quite historically accurate and the author's style does not interfere with this.  On the whole, the book is amusing but flawed, with quite bad characterisation but a good plot.

 

Other Books Enjoyed by Noah recently:

1. Blandings Castle by P.G. Wodehouse

2. Saiyuki by Kazuya Minekura

3. All-American Girl: Ready or Not by Meg Cabot
4. Staravaganza: City of Flowers by Mary Hoffman          
5. The Return of the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong

Loudmouth Louis by Anne Fine

I read this book mostly because I hadn't finished the two other books I was considering reviewing. It actually turned out to be very subtle and funny.

The story is about Louis, a boy who cannot stop talking. His constant chattering gets him into trouble. His teacher is so stressed that she needs to take aspirins at the end of the day! It drives his family nuts and is, in general, a nuisance. One day, his talking takes him too far when he accidentally tells the teacher that he will think up his own fundraiser to get money for the school library.

After a conversation with his gran, he finally has an idea. Since his mouth gets him into trouble, he will have a sponsored silence for seven hours straight. The teachers, who have had enough of his yammering, think this is a great idea, especially Mr Hambleton, as shown in this quote: "A whole percussion band practice without you talking! Oh, it's too good to be true! I can hardly wait."

Soon the fateful day arrives. Louis finds that because he always talked, he missed out many interesting parts of school life, and gains a special magnifying glass. He mends his chattering ways.

This story, told in the first person, is funny and interesting. The fact that it was written by the master author Anne Fine only makes it better. It has well developed characters who are believable and likable. Gran did not feature in much of the book but she was a very amusing character. Eventhough this book is short, it is a good read. (ages: 7-10)

Noah J.