15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Warning! Probably inappropriate for kids 14 & under!, September 5, 2009
This review is from: Age 14 (Hardcover)
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I think a lot of parents would not want their 14 year old (or younger) to read this book. I was hoping this would be a good selection for my son, who loves military books, to learn a little about the time period. The length, difficulty, title, and cover picture, not to mention that it appears to be published by a children's division of the publisher, made me think it was a kids' book, probably for kids around age 14. Yikes! Not really! At least, not for us!
I was startled early in the book by a scene of pederasty that immediately put me on guard and made me wonder if anything in the book would make it worth even keeping it. The pedophile in question is also a highly offensive character in that (other than that he rapes boys) his biggest flaw seems to be his obesity. "Fatso" (I kid you not; that's his nickname) is repulsive, and the author seems to relish describing his disgusting rolls of fat. Wonderful; as if we needed to encourage children to nurture a prejudice against heavy people.
Then, not much farther into the book, the 12-year-old hero is awakened in his bed to find the buxom farm hand Moira half-naked and straddling him, "moaning" with her "hot breath" in his ear. The scene doesn't, thankfully, play out as it might have but I think that some parents may choose to avoid such erotic scenes in their children's historical fiction!
Next to objections like these, some of my other problems with the book---like implausibility (e.g. he writes a letter home with perfect grammar and nearly perfect spelling, in spite of being a 12-year-old dropout from an illiterate family) or silly word choices (one point the translator had me rolling my eyes when she described a place where the boy used to "romp")---seem less important. Stilted writing, forced dialogue, and unrealistic elements are ultimately less of a showstopper for me when choosing historical fiction for my kids than simple appropriateness of the plot.
There are some good qualities to the book, such as the prevailing theme that war is not a game, and the subtle web that Patrick gets caught in as his lies multiply. An adult or older teen could enjoy this quick read and, yes, learn something about the time period. But parents looking to choose it for a child around "age 14" need to be aware that if it were a movie it would probably be rated R. Lots of R-rated books are awesome; this one is merely fair, so given that it seems to be presented as a children's book I have to say that I would NOT recommend it to kids at the age most likely to want to read it
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Stars for moderate historical accuracy only., October 3, 2009
This review is from: Age 14 (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I chose this book because read a lot of historical novels with our children to help flesh out their understanding and recall of historical facts.
It is a story about a very underage Irish boy who works his way into the army by changing identities with his older brother. As far as I can guess, the underage part of the plot was to make it appeal to young readers. I have only girls, and it can't imagine this book appealing to them. I'd like to hear about it from a boy perspective.
The good: It has couple of pages worth of encyclopedia-type history, and reading it might make names, dates, etc, stick a little better.
The bad: The characters are flat and the plot is simple and predictable with apparent encyclopedia excerpts instead of sub-plots. There is some sexual content that seems extremely out of place and inappropriate for the targeted reader level.
The summary - we won't be using this one for our girls.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not for Young Children, October 19, 2009
This review is from: Age 14 (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Although the book was based on the true story of a fourteen-year-old Irish lad lying about his age and going off to war, the authors didn't deliver on what could have been a fascinating tale about a child experiencing the horrors of World War I. The characters, including the main character, are not well-drawn. The book seems to be written in a simple style for readers younger than twelve and yet the subject matter should be rated R. There is not only a pedophile whom the authors attempt to make more disgusting by describing him as fat, but a farm girl who climbs into bed with the then twelve-year-old main character with the idea of seducing him. The letter the boy wrote home didn't seem to fit at all with his background. The dialogue didn't seem right for the time or place and the whole weak storyline seemed contrived. This book didn't work for me.
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