Book Review: Jacob's Ladder

Jacob’s Ladder by Brian Keaney

I have deeply conflicting views about Jacob’s Ladder. On one hand, I love the concepts presented in the book and the plot is actually quite brilliant but on the other hand, the writing is rather stodgy, which wastes the clever plot and drags the story down.

The protagonist in the book is Jacob (duh) who wakes up one day in a field without any memory prior to waking up. He is met by an elderly man, Virgil, who brings him to a town of some sort where he is put into a dormitory with other boys of his age. In the dormitory, he meets kind and friendly Toby and aloof and sneering Stefan, along with a bunch of other boys. All the boys are dressed in gray and they have dinner in a central meeting place where tons of other boys and girls come together.

Jacob learns that their dormitory is only one of many and that all the children are in the same boat as him. They have all woken up one day in the field with completely no recollection of their life before that awakening moment. In the day, the children are put to work. There is a bus assigned to every dormitory and the children in each dormitory are ferried to empty plots of land where they have to pick up the stones. The rationale for clearing the stones from the land is to build more dormitories because whoever is running the place is anticipating more amnesiac arrivals.

Jacob is unwilling to settle into the mindless routine that is expected of them. He rebels in various ways (refusing to pick up the stones or staying back in the dormitory when he is supposed to be clearing the land) but fails miserably each time. Eventually he decides to run away. By then, he has heard of the Palace of Remembrance which is a sort of legend amongst the children. It is rumoured to be the residence of the King and Queen of the land and it is said that anyone who arrives there will get his memories back and be returned to his previous life. Thus Jacob decides to set out for the Palace.

Two of his good friends, Toby and Aysha (a girl living in another dormitory who arrived on the same day as Jacob) decide to accompany him on his journey.

The rest of the story deals with the trio’s quest to find the Palace. Along the way, they face several setbacks. They run out of food and water, encounter some ghosts that try to bewitch them into staying, come face-to-face with feral dogs that want to eat them and Jacob gets tricked by a strange man who shares some similarities with the witch in Hansel & Greta. In one pivotal scene, Jacob has to climb a long long ladder that seems never-ending which gives us the title of the book.

Does the Palace of Remembrance really exist? What do Jacob and his friends face at the end of their journey? You’ll have to read the book to find out the ending.

Let’s talk about the pros of the book first. The story is obviously well thought-out. The writer, Brian Keaney, leaves some puzzles and hints along the story and at the end of the story, most of these resolve nicely to form a coherent story. If you’re a sharp reader, you may even guess the truth before the writer reveals it.

Clever plot aside, what I really enjoy when I read the book are the themes explored by Keaney. One key theme is perseverance. On his quest, Jacob faces many difficulties and there are times when he comes close to throwing in the towel. But at each key moment, he will cast his mind back on what he really wants, grit his teeth and soldier on.

This perseverance is very similar to resilience and it is the key to success. Read enough stories about successful people and you will realise that most of them faced a lot of hardships before they achieved success but instead of giving up, they chose to plod along the difficult path, believing firmly in their dream, before they finally became successful.

Life is a bed of roses - not!

This is an important lesson, especially for Singapore’s affluent children. Many of you don’t have to worry where your next meal is coming from or if you would have enough money to pay the school fees. But when you enter society and begin your working life, unless you are lucky enough to have extremely influential or wealthy parents, you’ll realise that life is not a bed of roses. But you know what? It is the struggle that makes life meaningful.

Related to this theme is the theme of passion. Jacob firmly believes in his goal and that is what drives him on, even during the darkest moments of his quest. Do you have a passion? Do you have something that will motivate you, give you hope, even when you are feeling down? Don’t worry if your answer is no. Take the time to think what it is that you enjoy doing. Then see if this is something that can sustain you when things seem dire and begin exploring from this point.

I also like Keaney’s take on second chances. He suggests that many second chances are squandered and although the book ends on an optimistic note, one may forgive him for the overly neat conclusion for this is after all a children’s book and he did do enough work throughout the story so that the ending doesn’t feel like too it’s much of a copout.

Now, the cons. Actually there is only one and that is Keaney’s style of writing. He writes in a very simple and direct manner and is very sparing when it comes to descriptions. The advantage of this is that the book is easy to read, but at the same time it makes the book dull.

As such, I would recommend this book for beginning readers, children who find picture books too easy and are beginning to move on to proper books. Or you could close an eye to the dull language and just read for the ideas.

You could get the book from Amazon by clicking on the link below or borrow it from the library if you’re interested.

Rating: 3/5

Suggested for children aged 9 and above.


By TCC

A Link To Our Sister Blog

I don't usually recommend Stephen King to my younger pupils for although he is a great storyteller, he uses vulgarities quite a bit and some of his plot points are rather adult in content.


But I would mention him in passing to the older pupils for he does know how to tell an interesting story. His stories have great hooks which is why many find it difficult to put his books down. He is also skilled in using the voice of the narrator; he is as convincing when he is narrating in the voice of a well-read college grad as when he speak as a boorish blue-collar worker.


For readers 12 and above, if you are interested, you could read the book review of Night Shift here.


But you have been forewarned: There are coarse words, gore and quite a lot of uncomfortable truths about humankind.

Spelling Lists for Semester 2 Week 21

Advanced Composition

1. Butterflies of vivid hues fluttered amongst the brilliant blooms.
2. entranced
3. sparsely furnished
4. cigarettes
5. smugglers' den
6. dense vegetation
7. ambush
8. stranded




Intermediate Composition

The Swiss army knife - a handy gadget

1. trudge
2. kidnapper
3. hideout
4. dilapidated
5. wealthy
6. modest family
7. a king's ransom
8. surrounded the criminals

Grammar Tip: ''Shining Trinket' or 'Shiny Trinket'?

Recently, we wrote a story about a robbery. In the story, the robber had snatched the victim's necklace and was running away with it.


Some of the pupils became a little confused between 'shining' and 'shiny' and wrote:

He was holding a shining trinket in his hand.


'Shining' actually means 'emitting or reflecting light' (The Concise Oxford Dictionary) . Some will argue that the sentence is not wrong because the necklace does reflect light. Put that way, every visible thing reflects light. Your desk reflects light. Your uniform reflects light. Your worksheet reflects light. Does that make them 'shining'?

Spelling Lists For Semester 2 Week 20

Advanced Composition

1. acquiescence
2. flammable
3. cronies
4. puffing away like chimneys
5. minions
6. stooges
7. deliberation
8. I could see that his mind was busy at work as he calculated the chances of him overcoming Tom.





Intermediate Composition

1. horizon
2. minimart
3. parched
4. shop assistant
5. chugged down
6. pondered
7. weighed his options
8. mulled over

A Composition A Week - Flight

I realised that I've been putting up works only by our primary school pupils.


To address the imbalance, here is an essay by one of our secondary school pupils.

FLIGHT

For years, Man dreamt of one day when he is able to throw off the shackles that bind him to the ground, to be able to be as free as the birds in the sky, to be able to make the sky their limit. Since time immemorial, Man was only able to dream, to gaze wistfully at the creatures of the sky as they soar through the air effortlessly, hoping that one day, he might be able to take his place in the sky.

With the birth of civilisation and Man settling down instead of constantly being on the move, a myriad of flying instruments flourished as Man tried to crack the code that binds us to the ground. From kites and hot air balloons in China to gliders in Europe, Man was able to send objects into the air for a period of time, but realising his dreams of sustained flight and putting men in the skies still eluded him.

A sample of da Vinci's flying machine

By the 15^th century, Renaissance in Europe was in full bloom, with art and science flourishing throughout the continent. Leonardo da Vinci, a visionary and artist, dreamt of great things, designing multiple blueprints for a submarine, a tank, a parachute and many more. But none was more intriguing than his blueprints for a flying machine. Many inventors after da Vinci tried and failed to get larger objects airborne in sustained flight but most ended in failure.

As the Industrial Age drew near, Man had not given up on his aspiration to be airborne. With new technological discoveries, Man was ever closer in having his dream take flight. In the late 18^th century, the Montgolfier brothers succeeded in placing humans in the sky via a tethered hot air balloon. It was a success, now that Man is able to travel by air, albeit slowly. With the invention of the steam engine, aviation was revolutionised as Man was then able to travel against the air currents at a faster speed. Known as airships, they were regarded as the cutting edge of technology, similar to how we regard Google’s project on building a self-steering car today. These balloons were used in the American Civil War as observation posts, and subsequently used in the Franco-Prussian War to evacuate French politicians from Paris before its capture. Though the balloons were ground-breaking technology, they were extremely fragile and slow, so Man went back to the drawing board once more.

Zepplins - Germany's war machines

Multiple inventions were made to create a faster and safer substitute for balloons throughout the 19^th century but none were as famous as the Wright brothers’ invention of the world’s first sustained flight aircraft powered by a control engine in the early 1900s. The new technology was primitive, and Man still preferred to travel by air via large airships. By the time World War One erupted in Europe, war was taken, for the first time, to the air. Armed airships, known as Zeppelins, bombed London, and observed troop movements. The race to take the airships down started. Both the Allies and the Central Powers drew on the Wright brothers’ new technology, designing the world’s first fighter and bomber aircraft. By the time the war ended, flight had taken a whole new shape. The aircraft technology had advanced rapidly in the short five years of war, at a pace which astounded many. The technological advancements made to the aircraft should have required at least twenty years by the pace they were going, but the war sped it up by four times.

The Hindenburg Disaster -
the aviation equivalent of the Titanic

After the war, the aircraft technology was turned over for civilian use. Commercial flights were available, but they were dwarfed by airships. However, airship travel was slow and dangerous, and a large scale accident involving a certain Hindenberg airship spelled doom for airship travel forever. By the 1930s, the world was once again gearing up for war as Nazi aggression in Europe increases. Primitive biplanes made of paper and wood soon evolved into a much more advanced form. With the outbreak of World War Two, aviation technology once again sped up as nations competed to design and build more advanced aircraft. Soon, pressurised cabins and jet technology came into the picture and by the time the war came to an end, the technology was more advanced than ever. Another arms race began as the two superpowers, America and Russia, competed to gain the upper hand in the Cold War. Jet technology was further refined and the range of aircraft extended. Such technologies affected the commercial market for air travel as much as they did for the military. Douglas initially was the largest producer of commercial aircraft, but Boeing soon cornered the markets with the release of the model 747, which changed the way air travel was run till this day. However, a new giant has recently made it big, the Airbus company with their A380 model, and subsequent advanced designs, making people wonder if there is a new aviation revolution waiting to happen.

From dreams to reality, from kites to jumbo planes, Man has succeeded in taking flight and joining the other creatures of flight in the skies. Once we merely thought of joining the creatures of flight as equals, but today we have surpassed them by leaps and bounds, being able to fly further, faster and higher than any known creature in the world. Man has come a long way since our existence, and out thirst and dreams of desiring something that is bodily out of reach drives us ever forward. We are a species that is not designed for flight, but yet we manage to break the boundaries and chains binding us to the ground. The sky is the limit for us now.

Lee Shao Yee (S3)

Catholic High

Note: The topic was a GCE O-Level essay question.

Spelling Lists for Semester 2 Week 19

Advanced Composition

1. anchor tenant
2. A wide selection of exquisite journals was neatly displayed on the shelves.
3. shiny trinket
4. dainty
5. threw all caution to the wind
6. impeccable
7. galvanised
8. perpetrator

Intermediate Composition

1. biceps
2. His spiky hair was unkempt, sticking out in little tufts.
3. tattoos
4. He reeked of alcohol and stale smoke.
5. air-conditioned carriage
6. clutch
7. felon
8. brief struggle