BOOK REVIEW: LIFE AFTER LIFE

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is another book with the reincarnation theme.

I first came across Kate Atkinson when I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum, a book which I enjoyed tremendously, for its matter-of-fact descriptions of a dysfunctional British family, and the surprise revelation at the end of the book, which I didn’t see coming.

Subsequently I read another book by Kate Atkinson (either Human Croquet or Emotionally Weird, I can’t remember which) and that book left totally no impression, as well as put me off Kate Atkinson for a long time. I discovered after reading the second book and again upon reading Life After Life that I only liked Kate Atkinson when I first came across her reading; it was novel and interesting for the first time, but there is something depressing about her writing, and that puts me off.

Hence it is after an interval of more than five years that I finally picked up another book by her, and this is because I read a review in Straits Times which mentioned Life After Life in comparison with the book it was reviewing. Like Cloud Atlas, Life After Life has a reincarnation theme. But the structure of this book is decidedly more conventional than Cloud Atlas, and it is a much tamer ride, unlike Cloud Atlas which was a bit of a emotional roller-coaster read.

 **SPOILERS AHEAD**

The structure of Life After Life is more conventional than Cloud Atlas but it’s still rather unusual, as far as novels go. The book follows the life of one Ursula Todd who was born on a cold winter night in 1910, but she died immediately after being expelled from her mother’s womb for she was strangled by her own umbilical cord. She was reborn and then met with another untimely demise when she drowned in the sea at the age of four. And she was reborn again… And so on.

The book follows the lives of Ursula Todd each time she was born. Some lives were long, others not. And through her various rebirths, we also get to know her family (parents, four siblings, a ditzy yet savvy aunt), friends (neighbours), servants and love interests. Her lives straddled both world wars (when she lived long enough, that is) and thus we also get a snapshot of how the wars, especially World War II, affected the British.

I find that the book ends with a whimper rather than a bang. It is hinted that Ursula’s numerous rebirths are because she has a destiny to fulfil — to avert World War II. She did this right at the beginning of the book, and I thought it was the author playing around with the timeline, putting the end of the story at the beginning of the book. Then when she finally succeeded in assassinating Hitler towards the end of the book and died in the process, she was reborn another two times, and I’m like ?! Then what’s the point of her rebirths?

Perhaps, just perhaps, Atkinson is using the story to illustrate the philosophy of time. The resident psychiatrist-cum-philosopher in the book, Dr. Kellet, had mentioned that time is circular, much like a snake consuming its own tail, and so we go round-and-round with Ursula Todd each time she was born. Or it could be as Ursula herself said, ‘It’s like a […] palimpsest.’, each life laid on top of another, and leaking memories and emotions from one to the other.

Life After Life is an okay read. If you’re wondering what to do with your time, this book could help you pass two weeks or thereabouts. There are worse books out there, but then again, there are also better books.

CLOUD ATLAS: The Book and the Movie

I first came across Cloud Atlas as a movie. There was quite a lot of advertisements and hype, and mistakenly thinking that it was a Hollywood production, I didn’t pay much attention to it.

Then Fate intervened. One day I was taking Aeroline; can’t remember if it was from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur or vice versa. What was important was that amongst the movie selection was Cloud Atlas. Even then, it didn’t entice me. It took a glimpse of a fellow passenger’s screen to finally intrigue my interest and make me tune into the movie. And you know what? I don’t regret spending three hours of my life on it. The movie was good. I especially enjoyed the Korean segment and even ventured to Fanfiction to feed my need for more Cloud Atlas.

Then I discovered that the movie was based on a book. Hallelujah! Quickly I hightailed to the nearest library and checked out a copy of the book, with a little fear that for once in my life, I might find the movie better than the book.

Well, that didn’t happen.

But would I say that the book is better than the movie?

Not exactly. I’ve come to view both book and movie as separate entities and I don’t overly prefer one or the other.

The movie

I watched the movie without having read the book and hence many nuances and details were lost to me. I managed to follow the gist of the movie but without 100% comprehension. It was an entertaining enough movie but what lifted the experience from a typically enjoyable viewing to one that left a deeper impression was the Sonmi story. I found the romance between Somni~451 and Im Hae-Joo touching. Which is quite amazing actually. In all my 41 years, I’ve never enjoyed a single Western romance. The Koreans do romance very well: My Name Is Kim San-Soon, Sassy Girl Chun-Hyang, My Girl, Coffee Prince, Best Love, City Hall, I’ve enjoyed them all. But I’ve never come across a Western romance movie or series that I liked. Hence my utter surprise when I found my heart softening, and then aching for the Sonmi-Haejoo pairing.

Imagine my further surprise when I discovered that the storyline in the movie was rather different from the one in the book. But since it worked well, I shan’t be a purist and complain.

Apart from Sonmi’s story, I didn’t find the other stories particularly inspiring. They were all right, just not outstanding.

The fun in watching Cloud Atlas the movie was in trying to spot which actor/actress was in which role. Some were pretty obvious, like Halle Berry as Luisa Rey or Zhou Xun as Yoona~939. Others, though, were so heavily made up that it made the guessing game quite challenging. I was shocked to find out that the actor cast as Im Hae-Joo was actually Jim Sturgess, a Caucasian actor!

Even though the movie stretched almost three hours (172 minutes), it was entertaining enough so that one does not feel the strain of time too acutely.

The book

The structure of the book is very interesting. It is made up of six stories:

1. The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing — 1800s

2. Letters from Zedelghem — 1931

3. Half-Lives — The First Luisa Rey Mystery  — 1970s

4. The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish — 2012

5. An Orison of Sonmi~451 — 2144

6. Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After — even later than Sonmi’s story

The six stories are listed according to chronology. What is rather novel is how David Mitchell, the author, arranged the stories. Instead of running the stories chronologically, he began with the first story but at a critical juncture, he broke off the story and started the second story. Likewise as the second story reaches the climax, he broke off and began the third story and this goes on until the sixth and final story, which is allowed to unfold in a conventional manner from beginning to end. Then we return to the fifth story and so on, finishing each story but in reverse order.

To be honest, it was quite infuriating, if interesting. I cheated anyway. For the stories that I find truly too interesting to resist (Letters from Zedelghem, Half-Lives— The First Luisa Rey Mystery, An Orison of Sonmi~451), I jumped ahead and finished them before continuing with the later story.  :)

What is impressive about the book is how Mitchell demonstrated his range of writing repertoire. Each story is a completely different literary genre. The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing is a historical novel, or novella in this case, Letters from Zedelghem is a humorous epistolary memoir, Half-Lives—The First Luisa Rey Mystery is a potboiler thriller, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish is a satire, An Orison of Sonmi~451 is about science fiction dystopia, while Sloosha’s Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After has a post-apocalypse fantasy setting.

When you think about how most writers specialise in just one genre for most of their writing lives, and here we have David Mitchell blithely exercising his creative juices by penning a total of six different genres, and doing it well… I take my hat off. Really.

But I must warn that not all the stories are equally enjoyable. You know my three favourite. Top story for me is a close fight between Letters and Sonmi, but Letters wins by a tiny margin, mainly because of its humour and compelling narrator, Robert Frobisher. (Yes, in the movie, Sonmi wins hands down.)

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing takes some time for one to settle into because of the archaic language used. But once you get into the story, it is all right. I found The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish a little over the top, but overall, still rather enjoyable. Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After was, for me, the weakest story. Maybe it was because by the time I got to this story, I was exhausted (it’s a thick book — 529 pages!). But I particularly didn’t like it because of the language that Mitchell used to depict the primitive state the people returned to after the (hinted nuclear) apocalypse.

Apart from being awed by the writing skills of Mitchell, another thing I like about the book is how the stories are all inter-linked. These links come in many layers. Firstly, it is strongly hinted that the main character in each story is the same soul, reincarnated over several lives. This soul is identified by the comet-shaped birthmark that accompanies him in each life.

Then we have artefact from each story falling into the hands of a character in the next story, like Robert Frobisher coming across Adam Ewing’s journal, Luisa Rey find Robert Frobisher’s letters, Timothy Cavendish receiving a manuscript based on Luisa Rey’s story, Sonmi~451 watching a movie based on Timothy Cavendish’s story, and Zachry viewing Sonmi’s orison and thinking she is a goddess. Sublime really, all these connections.

But what is even more sublime is how the various characters would have premonitions or deja vu of incidents that occurred in other lives. It’s like past and future events breaking down the barriers of time and manifesting as dreams and inexplicable sensations.

This book is highly recommended. Read it for Mitchell’s brilliant writing, his wide repertoire and its innovative structure.

I generally don’t buy books. In Singapore’s birdcage-like apartments, there isn’t much space to store books. I only buy books that I really, really like. The last book I bought was Suzanne Clark’s Mr Norrell & Jonathan Strange. I’m seriously considering getting this one.

TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY By John Steinback

John Steinbeck is one of USA’s literary giants. Yet I’ve never read any of his works. I know, I know. My only excuse is that Singapore is an ex-colony of Britain and my own reading tastes tend to veer towards British writers. Another reason is that I tend to be sceptical of American claims which tend to be larger than life.

I read about this book somewhere on some website and out of idle curiosity, while I was in the Jurong East Regional Library one day, I decided to check to see if the library had a copy and they did. I checked the book out, out of the same idle curiosity.

Right from the start, Steinbeck’s writing blew me away. His writing was brilliantly original, witty and sharp, and deeply American, which I realise is not a bad thing when done properly — it adds an authentic flavour to the book.

Travels With Charley was published in 1962, the same year in which Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. It was based on his four-month journey around the States in the late fall and early winter of 1960. He travelled in a mobile home — a truck with an attached cabin that contained the comforts of home — that he christened Rocinante after the hero’s horse in Don Quixote. Although his wife joined him at certain short segments of the trip, his only constant companion was his dog, Charley, hence the title of the book.

At the start of the book, Steinbeck explained that he embarked on the trip because of travel lust, a restlessness that had plagued him since he was young. He kept putting it off, think that age would temper the urge, but upon realising that even at the grand old age of 58, he was still possessed by this compulsion, he decided to give in to it. He set off with the intention of learning the truth about his country, though he cautioned the reader that truth is always subjective, focused through the lens of the person experiencing it.

The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 is the introduction in which he explains his rationale for the trip as well as his plan and preparations.

Part 2 plunges into the start of his trip. He set off from his home in Sag Harbour, New York, and travelled north to Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. He stopped in Maine before heading north to Canada briefly and then returning to USA, passing through Ohio, Michigan and Illinois at high speed. He stopped briefly in Chicago where he was joined by his wife.  And that concluded Part 2.

In Part 3, Steinbeck describes his journey through Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Oregon before he reached California, where he had spent his childhood. After spending some days there, he left for New Mexico and that concludes the third part of the book.

The last part of the book covers Steinbeck’s journey to Texas (where he again met up with his wife) and New Orleans before he finally turned round and headed for home.

What makes the book interesting is Steinbeck’s detailed observations of his country’s landscape and his keen insights on his countrymen. Some of his observations remain relevant, and are even prophetic, some fifty years after he had penned his sojourn. There are many reasons to read this book: to gain a better understanding of that vast and complex superpower, the USA (USA is too complex to be succinctly described in a thin book, but Steinbeck’s travels give us a relevant perspective); it’s a good way to pass time (his wicked humour is highly entertaining); Steinbeck’s sharp understanding of human nature is enlightening; and to see how the English language is wielded by a master.

As a teacher, during writing lessons, I would explain to my students that to describe a place, they need to use their five senses as much as possible. And because humans are highly visual creatures, the most important sense that needs to be described is sight. If they should be stumped about what to describe, they can always fall back on colours.

There is no better way to illustrate this than to see how a master wordsmith does it. A couple of examples here:

In the Bad Lands

Steinbeck initially found the Bad Lands foreboding and unwelcoming. But he discovered that as day turned into night, the passage of time drastically transformed the Bad Lands into the ‘Good Lands’.

[…] And then the late afternoon changed everything. As the sun angled, the buttes and coulees, the cliffs and sculptured hills and ravines lost their burned and dreadful look and glowed with yellow and rich browns and a hundred variations of red and silver grey, all picked out by streaks of coal black. It was so beautiful that I stopped near a thicket of dwarfed and wind-warped cedars and junipers, and once stopped I was caught, trapped in colour and dazzled by the clarity of the light. Against the descending sun the battlements were dark and clean-lined, while to the east, where the uninhibited sunlight poured slantwise, the strange landscape shouted with colour.

In Oregon where he visited redwood country to pay homage to the ancient trees

The trees rise straight up to zenith; there is no horizon. The dawn comes early and remains dawn until the sun is high up. Then the green fernlike foliage so far up strains the sunlight to a gold green and distributes it in shafts or rather in stripes of light and shade.

The middle segment of the book lags a little, so some readers may find it dreary, and all the place names can be confusing for a non-American. But as an introduction to Steinbeck’s writing, it is a superb initiation and I can’t wait to start reading his famous works of fiction, The Grapes of Wrath and  East of Eden.

Book Review: THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

There is no denying that Neil Gaiman is a compelling writer. He comes up with cliffhangers that demand you continue reading to find out what happens next.

That said, I generally find something lacking in many of his stories. There is always that something that leaves me vaguely unsatisfied after reading his book. As a result, I generally prefer his short stories to his novels. He is one of the most celebrated fantasy writers of his time, and rightly so. But for some reason, even though I find his stories interesting, unique and original, I hesitate to call any of his works ‘great’.

Recently, I finished The Ocean at The End of The Lane. My first impression was that it was his best work yet. Unlike his previous novels, I didn’t go away with that gnawing feeling of unsatisfied expectations.

The story starts off with an unnamed narrator who went back to England for some unspecified event - but which was most probably a funeral - and prompted by an urge that was only partially explained at the end of the story, he visited his old neighbourhood and drove down the lane to the farm of his old friend, Lettie Hempstock.

SPOILERS AHEAD

As he sat on the farm, his memories returned to him and he remembered the three females on the farm: Grandmother Old Mrs Hempstock, Mother Mrs Ginnie Hempstock and daughter Lettie Hempstock, as well as the role they played in the life-and-death incident when he was seven.

When he was seven, his parents fell on hard times and had to take in boarders (tenants in American English). One of the boarders was a South African miner who came in a cab that ran over and killed the boy’s black kitten. In return, he caught a hostile tomcat and gifted it to the Boy. Not particularly important plot point but for some reason I find this part hilarious.

The significant role played by the South African in the story was that he committed suicide after losing all his money, and his friends’ money, at a casino. And he chose to die at the edge of the Hempstocks’ farm.

The problem with this was that the Hempstocks were no ordinary women. They were benign supernatural beings who ensured that order was kept in all the worlds of the universe. When the miner died at the edge of their farm, a place where the barriers between worlds run thin, he awoke a being from another world (whom we shall call Rags) who began to wreck havoc on this world.

The Hempstocks were apprised of the situation by the Boy and Lettie was given the task of reining in Rags. This seemed to be a duty that she was no stranger to. Her manner was confident and easy and she decided to bring the Boy along. Just because she could. Even though her elders advised her against it. Anyone who knows fairytales would know what happens when the young go against the well-meaning advice of the older and wiser.

And indeed, although Lettie managed to subdue Rags, the latter found a way to follow the Boy back into his world, where she materialised into Ursula Monkton, an au pair (babysitter to the rest of the world) who made the Boy’s world hell. She banned him from leaving the grounds of his house, so he could not go to the Hempstocks’ home for help. She kept an eye on him as closely as the NSA monitors the world, Americans and non-Americans alike. She seduced his father, and abetted him to almost drown the Boy.

Eventually, the Boy managed to escape to the Hempstocks’ farm. Lettie came to the rescue by calling forth some supernatural birds that feed upon beings like Rags and Rags was devoured by these creatures. Problem quite easily solved? Not quite.

That was not the end of the Boy’s woes. It turned out that Rags had used the Boy as a portal to cross over from her world to his. And a fragment of the portal was left in his heart. So the birds refused to leave until their job was done, that is until they had consumed his heart. In the ensuing face-off, Lettie was badly hurt, as close to death as a being like her could be. Her grandmother and mother released her into the ocean which resembled a pond (another manifestation of the women’s powers) so that she could heal. It was hinted that her healing could take eternities and that even then, she might not return. And if she did return, it could be in another form.

After the incident, the Boy’s memories were altered so that he didn’t remember Lettie sacrificing herself to save him. What he remembered was that she left for Australia with her father. Only at the crossroads of his life would he return to the pond/ocean. Another reason offered for his occasional returns to the pond/ocean was that Lettie wanted to see how the Boy turned out. Which was the true reason? Shrugs. With Lettie’s powers, injured as she was, she could possibly have timed her desire to see the Boy with his life-changing moments. The Boy never remembered those times he returned to the farm. Just as it was shown that the moment he left this time, at the end of the book, he began to forget again.

Gaiman is a master at world-building. It is amazing how he could use such simple language to construct a layered world imbued with magic and fantasy. There was the normal mundane world which was a struggle for the Boy who was a loner and could not fit in in school. When he met Lettie, he stumbled into her world where time travel was normal and reality could be altered, or even deleted.

The charm of this story lies in the strength of the world Gaiman built. Despite all the incredulous happenings, he made it all so realistic and believable.

It is recommended that this book be read just to see how simple words and language could be used to knit a tight and gripping story.

My only gripe with the book is that the problem of the ravenous birds who would not go away was resolved so easily that it was a little contrived. But this is a minor quibble, in view of the enjoyable hours I spent in the Boy and Lettie’s world.

BOOK REVIEW: THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

I loved fairy tales when I was young. Fairy tales, ancient legends and horror. And a huge dose of anything Enid Blyton. These were the staples of my reading diet as a primary school pupil. If you, like me, also like fairy tales, then this is the book for you.

John Connolly may be more famous for his Charlie Parker private detective series of novels but his 2006 The Book of Lost Things is a totally different kettle of fish. The Book of Lost Things is set during World War II and centres around David, a twelve-year-old boy. Not long after David lost his mother who died after a long illness, his father remarried a woman Rose whom he met in the hospice where David’s mother had stayed and a new half-brother came along, further displacing David from his old life, a golden age which he came to associate with his dead mother, domestic bliss and carefreeness.

Probably because of his unhappiness, David began to change. He started to have seizures during which he would pass out. The only thing was during the periods when he was knocked out, he didn’t really lose consciousness. He would have visions of a strange world and he knew that because vignettes of his hallucinations would return to him when he was lucid but these tattered fragments made no sense to him.

Another eerie change was that he began to hear the chatter of books. Yes, books talk. And the tone and content of their conversations depend on the contents between their covers. David was worried and frightened by these weird changes but there was no one he could talk to because his father was occupied by his efforts for the war and trying to adapt to the new family, and David’s relationship with Rose was highly antagonistic.

BOOK REVIEW: BALIK KAMPUNG

Balik Kampung by Verena Tay

Balik Kumpung is a collection of short stories centred around local neighbourhoods. They are written by authors who have lived in these neighbourhoods for considerable lengths of time – at least a decade. All these stories were edited by Verena Tay, which is why only her name is reflected in the title of the post.

‘Balik kampung’ is a Malay phrase which means to go home, and it is a most apt title for this anthology. Each author has chosen a place that is dear to him/her as the setting of his/her story; each tale is an ode to the neighbourhood in which the author has called home at one time or another, and so when penning the story, the author is in a sense ‘returning home’. As a whole, this anthology is a fine addition to Singapore’s literary collection. It is one more identity marker for all who call Singapore home, one more drop in our cultural ocean pond (but it is growing), reminding Singaporeans to look harder at this island we call home.

The stories are set in neighbourhoods that Singaporeans would recognise easily: Marine Parade, Changi, the Holland Road area, Nee Soon, Redhill, and the Dunearn-Bukit Timah area. Some of the stories – Lighthouse, Tahar and Seven Views of Redhill – easily transported me back to the past and a couple of others are very powerful and evoked a strong emotional response in me.

It is great to realise that there are so many fine writers in Singapore. We may be a small country and although there has been no international award-winning writer from Singapore yet, we are not lacking in literary talent. And you know what, if we want the world to take notice of our writers, we need to support our writers and give them the courage and motivation to continue writing. So do grab a copy of Balik Kampung or borrow one from your neighbourhood library.

(To keep the review within reasonable length, I’ll only be reviewing three stories out of eight.)

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