In a country where war constantly looms over the people, one of the very few boys that can read and write in the city is dragged into the boundaries of conflict. At the age of fifteen, the timid Chiko is dragged away from the comfort of his home and tricked into joining a cause he does not believe in. Overall, I really enjoyed the first few chapters. Throughout the book, I felt like the author did an amazing job with both character and plot development, wasting no time at all with “lagging” events. Unlike most historical fiction novels, Bamboo People took an opportunity to progress the plot quickly, whereas many other books of this genre take too much time describing background information. However, while the book’s plot developed well, I noticed …show more content…
After all the hardships Tai and Chiko have endured in camp, Tai calls Chiko his “ko”. In Burmese, “ko” means “elder brother” and is a word used only for either biological brothers or people who are very close. The way the author uses “ko” is a much more powerful way to describe the relationship that Tai and Chiko now have. In the very last paragraph of the chapter the author writes, “I flick him [Tai] lightly on the skull… like it’s the most important job in the world” (Perkins 108). By the way the two now interact with each other, a sense of lightheartedness and home like feeling is added to the atmosphere. Both of the boys miss their families greatly, but they were able to find new “family” through meeting each other in camp and friendship. Though this is very touching, I predict that this event is only foreshadowing a bleaker future for the two. Earlier in the novel when the boys first entered the training camp, Chiko referred to Tai as an “uneducated boy” (Perkins 73). It amazes me to see how much the characters can be transformed from trials and tribulations. Furthermore, I find it interesting how Perkins uses just this simple word, “ko,” to convey the lesson, “adversity shapes who we are.” Neither Chiko nor Tai predicted that they would find a “brother” in such a harsh place. Near the end of chapter twenty-two, Tai says that he has “never had a brother before” and “who knew [that] I’d [Tai] would find one here of all places.” (Perkins 108). Being sent to the training camp allowed the two to meet. Through the two meeting, Tai learns how to read and write, and Chiko gains the confidence and mental strength he always wished he
The diverse alternation of point of views also provides the story an effective way to reach out to readers and be felt. The characterisation is effectively done and applied as Sam, Grace, and the other supporting characters play individual, crucial roles in the course of the story. All the elements of a typical young adult novel, consisting of a gap-filled relationship between children and parents, emotion-driven teenagers, and a unique conflict that makes the book distinct from fellow novels, combined with the dangerous consequences of the challenges the couple encounter, make the book different from all other of the same genre. The plot unfolds slowly giving readers enough time to adjust and anticipate the heavy conflict when it arises. It has gotten us so hooked but the only thing we could possibly dislike about it was the slow pace of plot. The anticipation was too much to handle and we were practically buzzing and bouncing to know how the story turns out as we read. It builds the anticipation, excitement, thrill, sadness, grief, loss, and longing in such an effective way to entice and hook readers further into the world of Sam and
And probably the most influential person in the book, E.D. Morel. Morel, an employee of a Belgian company that handled shipments to the Congo, noticed that the shipments coming to and from the Congo seemed really suspicious. He put two and two together and realized what was happening. Morel was essentially the spring board of as Hochschild describes "The first Human rights campaign of the 20th century." I believe Hochschild tries to show his readers a holocaust that was going on in the African interior, how it was virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world and how easy it was to cover up. Hochschild also does a good job of showing how history somehow conceals the fact that it was going on. The book has many strengths I really enjoyed how he didn't try to portray everyone in the book as perfect including the protagonist some were conceited selfish etc.
The author is graphic in his detail of the people and the places of importance during this time in history. The book is written more from a Northern point of view and so I didn’t get quite the same perspective of the Southern side but still learned more than I knew before.
This is my personal reflection about this book. First and foremost, I would like to say that this book is very thick and long to read. There are about nineteen chapters and 278 pages altogether. As a slow reader, it is a quite hard for me to finish reading it within time. It took me weeks to finish reading it as a whole. Furthermore, it is written in English version. My English is just in average so sometimes I need to refer to dictionary for certain words. Sometimes I use google translate and ask my friends to explain the meaning of certain terms.
I really enjoyed this book because it was not a story about the middle of the Second World War. Instead it was right before, when things were not as bad, but they were bad enough. It helped me understand how people lived before the hatred grew and how families were torn apart right from the beginning. Likewise, it gave me hope to see that not everything was destroyed and that some people were able to escape. I would recommend this book more for boys but for girls as well, between the ages of 13-15. Even though Karl’s age throughout the book is 14-17, the novel was written more for my age group. Once again this was an amazing book that I could not put down, and I am sure many others were not able to either.
The book mainly revolved around one main person Tinh Ngo, a member of the gang. Through out the book Tinh or Timmy as he was called, ran the entire gambit of emotions from total loyally to being flipped and being the key witness in the federal case against the main players in the gang. The gang committed every kind of crime from petty robberies to murder. Tinh started his career as a criminal by robbing a message parlor in Chinatown that was in rival gang territory this robbery was a simple one that went off without a hitch, it gave him a false sense of ease in committing robberies. Over the months Tinhs involvement in crimes escalated until he was arrested, for the first time, and he spent some time in prison.
...ome aspect of war, from battling with enemies to how battle spiritually destroys young men. The one positive point of this novel is how friends cared for one another when going through tragedies and stressful experiences. It also portrays how strong a soldier needs to be, in order for them to be in the war.
of war through the eyes of the main character, Henry Fleming. Because the book is rather
I found the book to be easy, exciting reading because the story line was very realistic and easily relatable. This book flowed for me to a point when, at times, it was difficult to put down. Several scenes pleasantly caught me off guard and some were extremely hilarious, namely, the visit to Martha Oldcrow. I found myself really fond of the char...
...uses the reader to be more invested in the story and therefore truly strive to understand the world portrayed instead of just shallowly absorbing the setting. This is a strength because it gave the reader unique outlook on the Asian cultures because the audience feels personally involved in these situations. There are a few weaknesses in the book. I think perhaps, by putting the audience in these men’s shoes you cause them develop a bias. The reader will possibly have and emotional tie to the characters and because of this not see straight facts of history. The book is highly recommended to readers interested in pre-modern history, the book is a good look into the eastern world especially if one lacks research experience with that part of the world and its history.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
I was appalled to read the beginning of the paper. The intense training and encouragement of fighting made me feel sick. They are just children. They were raised by the government and not their parents. The children lived in barracks with minimal learning abilities. That made me feel bad for the children. They were only allowed one garment which confused me on how that helped them. Also why they had such poor sleeping arrangements surprised me. The facts that fights were encouraged made me feel like they were barbaric. They did this so children were able to take punishment easier. That made me feel confused.
As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceived notion about the indoctrination, "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and perplexed. The story is not about heroism but about toil and futility and the divide between the idea of war and the real life and its values. The selected passages are full of violence and death and loss and a kind of perpetual suffering and terror that most of us have never and hopefully will never experience. Both authors ability to place the reader right there on the front line with the main character so vividly, not just in terms of what he physically experienced and witnessed All the complicated, intense and often completely numbed emotions that came along...
This book was given to me by a good friend who knew that I had an interest in Asia. I chose to read it because it was a true story and was told that it was a good read.
Before one can even begin to understand the way in interpellation and social history influence Ozaki story “The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon-Child”. This a fascinating story of an old bamboo cutter who was poor and sad for he had no child to call his own. One morning as usual he went out and found a nice spot and started cutting some down. Then he saw the bright light coming from on the bamboo’s and found a tiny girl inside the size of his hand. He brought her home and the couple were extremely happy. After three months the girl grew into a full size women and her step-parents decided to name her Princess Moonlight. They had a party and invited everyone they knew to celebrate their new daughter. After the party the word of her beauty spread far