Customer Reviews

Bifocal

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lets get one thing out of the way. this is a novel aimed at the 9-15 year old crowd. Its centered in a high school in Canada and concerns racial tensions. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, the book is actually pretty good. Its a nice presentation of a topic that has gotten lots and lots of media coverage lately. the battle between radical Islam extremists and the rest of the world is played out here on a much smaller scale. In a high school, just like the larger outside world, you have your groups. The "brown" kids (Arabic, Indian, Afghani, etc..) the Black kids, the Goths, the Emos, the Popular Preppies, and then the Jocks.
All of them meet in the cafeteria for lunch but they are still divided according to social status and for the most part, skin color.
The characters are pretty well written. Jay is the jock with a consience. A Christian who is not sure he can do what the others do. Haroon, the Afghani who is smart and quiet, reserved and just wants to live a quiet life of peace. Kevin, the quarterback who never backs down. Zana, Haroon's twin who is stubborn and convinced of her own convictions. And we have Julian, the kid who seems able to cross all the social boundaries and ties them all together nicely.
An incident happens at the school and it sparks feelings of hate and violence. Intolerance and harsh ideas abound i this book, but it serves as a mini-primer on what we face today. There are some racial comments in this book, but they all serve the purpose of advancing the story and showing how intolerance and ignorance make us sound uneducated.
All things aside, I cant give this book 5 stars, for a few reasons. One, the ending felt really really rushed. There was great build up, tensions were piling and then....it fizzled. We never did get to find out what happened to the suspect arrested and taken to jail. It would have been nice to see the fate of that young person and how things were wrapped up or explained. We also didnt get to see any of the fallout or tensions between two of the main characters play out. At only 270-ish pages, there was ample room to explain a little more of the story and show some of the ramifications as well. But it was a good book none the less.
I would reccomend this book to a teacher looking for something to engage his or her students. It would go well in a sixth grade classroom or even a junior high civics class or world history. Its a good book to get children and young adults thinking and looking at two different sides to the same story/event. Solid writing with very few mistakes, a good subject matter and it takes place in October and around Halloween, how fitting that I finished it this morning...Halloween. A good book that bears a reading.

In today's world, we never know when our lives are going to change at the drop of a hat. However, most of us don't expect for our very existences to be questioned, and especially not those of us who live fairly normal lives in typical small towns. But when an Islamic terrorist plot is uncovered in just such a place, two high school boys find their lives turned upside down and their values questioned, and they both must make life-altering choices as to how they are going to handle themselves.

Haroon is a Muslim who is studying for a chance to be on the school's Reach for the Top academic team, but his life undergoes a terrifying shift when he is mistakenly taken out of his classroom as part of the terrorist plot that is uncovered. Even though his identity is secured fairly quickly, Haroon finds that life's going to be different; others look at him differently based on his religion and the color of his skin, things he'd never before thought much about. Haroon tries to keep things as normal as possible, but it's difficult when his twin sister Zana decides that her way of dealing with Muslim prejudice is to don the veiled abaya that makes her even more identifiable.

Jay is a star football player in his first year at the local high school; he's a good student who is pleased to find himself accepted as part of the in crowd. His whole life is focused on football until the team captain begins to let his prejudices against those different from him show; Jay finds himself swept up into an incident that quickly grows out of control. What Jay decides to do to rectify the situation reveals his own character.

Told in chapters that alternate between Jay's and Haroon's first-person points of view, this is an exceptional novel that speaks directly to today's headlines. Haroon and his family face prejudice simply because of their religion, and Jay and his family have to decide if their church beliefs allow them to display their own prejudices. The fact that the boys' lives don't really intersect gives the book a realistic feel, and the author does not shy away from the hard words or facts that most people are unwilling to face. Rarely has a book made me think so much or wonder so deeply about what makes us human. The book doesn't stray into the "happy ever after" domain and it's a very believable situation that many of us may face (or perhaps already do). I would be gratified to see this book as required curriculum in high schools across our country. Well-written and well told, it's a must-read. Highly, highly recommended. Read this book.

I thought that this would be an interesting book to read since it is the same story told from the viewpoint of two different teenagers with their parts written by two different award-winning authors. The two narrators are Jay, an all-American white football player, and Haroon, an Afghani-American kid who is on the school's knowledge quiz team. Without even reading a summary of the book, it's easy to figure out that the book is going to be a story about racial prejudices that will end with some sort of understanding between two culturally and religiously different people.

The dialog between the characters was very convincing. It took me back to my high school years when what people did and said are so important but often so petty. The cafeteria and school yard are full of various cliques of people who isolate themselves from others that are different from them. Specifically, in this novel, the place in the schoolyard where the Muslim students hang out is called "Brown Town". There's, of course, the jock who thinks he's so cool making up degrading names and jokes for people in the other groups. And, of course, there are the kids that go along with him because they don't feel like they have a choice.

There were some interesting, adventurous parts in this novel like when the football players all run up to the roof during a lockdown and when they run around town decorating people's lawns and houses with toilet paper, eggs, and vegetables. However, there were also some parts of the book that fell short of my expectations. For example, there was an episode that happened in class with a character named Hadi who seemed to come out of nowhere and supposedly did something that the teacher was going to contact the police about. Unfortunately, even though I read the preceding pages multiple times, I wasn't clear about what happened. We also never learn what becomes of the terrorist who is picked up by the police at the beginning of the story beyond the fact that he went to jail. His character just sort of disappears halfway through the story. Also, Haroon himself is a weaker character than I would have liked to have seen in this book. It would have been nice to have learned more about his culture in order for young American readers to have a better understanding of a culture that they often misunderstand. In the end, as easily predicted, Jay and Haroon become friends, but there's really no connection between them before that would bond them together. The resolution of the book is very weak. Nearly everything is resolved almost magically as the story ends and the story just sort of fizzles out.

Despite its weaknesses, I think this would be a good book to make students think about the personal side of learning to understand people from other cultures. It's a good source for making students think about what they say and do to others who are different than them. Unfortunately, the teens that should read this book and learn from it are probably not the teens who are going to pick it up to read it unless a teacher forces it upon the entire class.

When I got this book I was put off by the lack of a blurb. Just the statement: There are two sides to every story. You just have to listen.

And the dedication: To those we have been told to fear.

Pretty heady stuff. But this book did nearly everything right.

It was about Jay (a Caucasian football player) and Haroon (a Muslim smart kid). The chapters alternate in first person from each boys' perspective, hence the title. So you get to see the same thing happening from two positions.

I was afraid this was going to be about the boys' friendship, how everyone was going to try to get in the way. I was most plesantly surprised.

There is tons of plot, and lots of character development. The first half of the book literally flew under my fingertips. The third quarter was not as tightly written, so it dragged a bit (even though a lot of plot occurred here). The last quarter was amazing. Not just because it didn't go where you think it will go, but because it comes up with some amazingly satisfying resolution while thwarting your expectations at every turn.

It is also a very topical book, dealing with terrorism, religious intolerance, and high school politics. But these are all delt with in a very universal way. I can imagine folks reading this book years from now (and getting a lot out of it).

Highly Recommended for children in upper middle school and high school, also recommended for anyone looking for a great read.

Since this book was written for pre-teens, I turned it over to my 9-year-old son for review...

The title of this book is Bifocal. The authors are Deborah Ellis and Eric Walters. Bifocal is a tale about people who are different from each other.

The book is about two boys, Jay and Haroon. Jay is a boy who plays football and is the new kid at school. Haroon is a school quiz show contestant who is accidentally arrested for being a terrorist. Bifocal tells how these two very different boys meet and become friends.

I liked this book because it was exciting and thought-provoking. One of the most exciting parts is when Jay and his friends throw eggs, tomatoes, and toilet paper at some houses. The thought-provoking part of this book is how the two boys have different religions and are different in many other ways.

I recommend this book because I'm sure you'll love it. The reason I like Bifocal is because it has action all the way through it. It teaches a good lesson that even though people are different, they can still be friends. The book is good for ages 10 to 14.

What happens at a culturally diverse school when the spectre of international terrorism rears its ugly head? This book provides two parallel looks at the response of the students to the arrest of one of their classmates as allegedly being part of a terrorist plot. The story opens with the arrest, and we watch the development of cultural tensions at the school from alternating points of view. Jay is a junior, a member of the football team and white. Haroon is Muslim and of Afghan descent. These two narratives help us get inside the minds of students as they react to the fear. The peer pressures of this age are portrayed well, and we find some truly admirable reactions as well as some very despicable ones. However, most students fall somewhere in the middle as they try to understand their roles in the world. This is a thoughtful and sensitive exploration of the issues of racism and cultural tolerance in the context of the fear associated with the threat of terrorism.

Jay is a relatively new kid at school, but as a good football player he's already managed to integrate himself into the team and the coolest crowd at school. He's even managed to become good friends with the team captain and quarterback, and it looks likely he'll be recommended for captain next year. Haroon is a quiet kid who's a backup for the "Reach for the Top" team, an academic TV competition. He's also a Muslim, his grandparents having emigrated from Afghanistan long before. But things start to change for both of them when a terrorist plot is uncovered and a student is arrested and accused of being part of it. Haroon takes that boy's place on the academic team after nearly being arrested right alongside him, and Jay begins to see signs of prejudice and hatred even among his friends.

My 11 year-old son and I read this and we both really enjoyed it. The story is told alternately from each boy's perspective with plenty of excitement and drama, and both kids see the effects of racism although they're each affected by it in different ways. The book tries and mostly manages to show both sides of the various arguments and how judging others can be unfair and harmful, although I didn't always think it was the most balanced view. The story isn't about terrorism but about how segregating into different crowds can have unintended consequences, whether it's whites who believe all Muslims are terrorists or Muslims who withdraw behind a burka and label all whites as racist. And I appreciated that the book seems to try very hard not to be preachy. We enjoyed it very much and especially liked the ending.

I was very skeptical about this book when I received it- what were the chances that a young adult book less than 300 pages long could possibly tackle the subject of racism in a meaningful way?

Very good, in fact.

Bifocal is an intelligent, open-minded novel about two boys growing up in America- one a quiet Muslim, and one star Caucasian football player. A terrorist threat alerts the school and the community one morning, and both their lives are touched in very different, but thoroughly compelling ways.

I am an American minority, and even though I graduated high school several years ago, I thought the terminology used to describe the people and cliques at the school- especially in the cafeteria- were spot on. Neither of the authors cuts corners in terms of just how segregated a school can be, even in a "diverse" neighborhood. The story was portrayed very realistically. There are some scenes that are disturbing, of course- I don't think that a book can properly tackle such a monumental subject without having scenes of that sort. But they are important to the story as a whole, and important for people to read and understand.

This book will push buttons- it asks tough questions, confronts controversial topics and expects a great deal from its readers. But it manages, in less than 300 pages of fairly large font, to tackle an important issue facing all people today, and to end with a thoughtful and positive outlook on the world as it may be tomorrow.

Overall, it was a great read, and if I had a child, I would want him/her to read it- and I would certainly follow that read up with extensive discussion.

Azeem and Haroon are arrested on suspicion that they may be terrorists. Haroon is let go but Azeem goes to jail. He may be innocent (we never find out for sure). Should he be considered innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent? Some students choose the former, some the latter.

Jay is on the football team. Should he yield to peer pressure or should he go against the flow? Either way, he will suffer.

Haroon has suffered the embarrassment of being taken out of his classroom by the police, and he will suffer more if he treats Azeem as innocent until proven guilty. He is pressured to rat on Azeem, but he doesn't know anything incriminating about his friend. Should he disown him anyway? Should he give the police the evidence they want even tho he doesn't know whether or not it is true, thereby perjuring himself?

Haroon and Jay don't make all the right choices, but they make more right choices than wrong ones.

The authors do a good job of presenting believable teenagers faced with a tough situation, and having to make tough choices under pressure.

watziznaym@gmail.com

I was disappointed in this novel. Being an educator I thought I would find it intriguing but didn't.