Customer Reviews

Broken Bridge

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The book Broken Bridge written by Lynne Reid Banks is an exciting but sad story of a fourteen-year-old Jewish Canadian boy named Glen who goes to Israel to be with his relatives. Glen travels to Israel with his cousin Neli, but when they arrive there is no one there to pick them up. When they are not picked up, they decide to go home themselves. An Arab stabs Glen on their way home but Neli, is mysteriously saved by another Arab. The rest of the book deals with Neli's sadness about the event and how it affects many people in the Israeli community. The book also deals with the Arab side of the country and deals with the search for the two Arab murderers that kill Glen and how their lives and community are affected by their crime. The story is political and it is well written because it makes you think about how both sides of the story feel about the issues, like the war and the wall. Also perhaps Glen is murdered because he is such and innocent victim, may be used to show that some of the Arabs don't care who they kill even if they have nothing to do with the issue. And Glen may have been chosen to show how everyone came together to mourn his death. The book is a good book because it helps you learn about both sides of the conflict, and how the Arabs and Israelis both do some things that are right and some things that are wrong.

Knifing, Stabbing, Explosives, throwing of stones, all of this and more takes place in Broken Bridge. Broken Bridge, written by Lynne Reid Banks, is a historic novel and is based on the tragic event of the Intifada, (that takes place in Jerusalem, Israel). Nili, the main character, was nearly murdered by two Arabs on a street corner. Unfortunately, Nili's cousin, Glenn, is stabbed by one of the two men. The other man attempts to save Nili and succeeds. Nili refuses to turn her savior in, and is asked time and time again to give information about one of the men. She does not give in. Nili is determined to keep the man out of harm's way, as he did for her.

In the story of Broken Bridge, the plot was on the strong side. Although the book starts out quite dull, it gets more exciting the more you read. Everything weaves together nicely, which enables readers to stay hooked into the book. The book has a large number of characters, many of which who are constantly used, but, the book does not include many Arab characters, which shows that the book is biased towards the Israeli side. The author, also, does a so-so job of covering some of the situations that took place in the Middle East during the first Intifada. One criticism of this book is that it does not truly recreate scenes that possibly took place during the Intifada in Israel. She does, though, do a great job of using the type of language that was most likely used during that time. Many of the characters rarely speak perfect English, showing that English is not their native language. Lynne Reid Banks purpose in Broken bridge, was to educate those uneducated on the topic of the Intifada. If you have no idea of what the Intifada is before you read this story, you will leave with a basic understanding.

This is not your normal book, but is not a difficult, or an extremely easy story. It is intended more for readers of the Young Adult reading category. Broken Bridge is a story that is for strong readers, who can keep on track with a complicated plot. I recommend this story to all who are in for a tragic and exciting read.

Broken Bridge is the sequel to One More River and is written some 20 years later.
It focuses on one family, living on a kibbutz in Israel that becomes intimately involved with the intifada when one of them, a 14 year old boy is murdered. I should be noted that this book is primarily from the Israeli viewpoint, the Arab voices here are heard less.
I lived in Israel for several years during the intifada and can say that what makes this book particularly good for young readers is the combination of compelling personal story line, following Nili and her brother as they deal with the tragedy, and the inclusion of many points of view. We hear from Israelis who are very sympathetic to the Arabs and from others who aren't, feeling that revenge is important and that people can only take so much. This is a very important debate and it can help children get a better understanding of the situation and that not nation has only one viewpoint.
I can highly recommend this, both from a literary and a historical perspective.

This book is a ver depressing story. I still loved it. The characters were in depth and believable. Contrary to some other reviews advice, I believe you don't have to read the prequel at all. I haven't read it, and Broken Bridge is still my favoritee book. It is a great educational story, as well, with lots of information from both sides of the Arab Israeli conflict. Some parts make me cry, yet some are funny too. The book is on the whole the best one I have ever read.

Just recently started the book have found it a little hard to ead in the beginning but look forward to going forward.

The book Broken Bridge by Lynne Reid Banks is a multi-faceted look at an Israeli family living in a kibbutz in Israel. The book follows the lives of the family after a teenage member of the family gets stabbed to death by an Arab militant in the streets on the way to his and his cousin Nili's grandmother's house. The child who is killed is named Glen; he is from Canada and he was just going to Israel to visit his family who all live there. After his death the family tries to find out if it was Nili or Glen that died. They hoped it wasn't Nili because they all love her so much. Most of them had never even seen Glen. But none-the-less they are outraged that he had been killed, especially since the killer was an Arab. Throughout the book the police and the family are trying to find the killer, which was more of a secondary plot than the primary, which was just showing the life of the family.
Overall the book did not come out as great as it could have been. Murder mystery books are always great and fun to read, or at very least they have the potential to be. In the family many of the members did not have the same viewpoint on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This fact made the book more interesting but not as interesting as I would have wanted the book to be. Its many characters made it hard to follow. Another thing I did not like about the book was that there was not a first person view of the story. The entire book consisted of third person perspective on the story. I think also that the book would be far more fun to read if Nili had been used as the primary first person character. But overall the book just wasn't very interesting. Many of the chapters seemed more like they were just put in the book to fill up space. Also some of the relationships that the characters formed during the book seemed contrived and pointless, such as when Lev the Russian immigrant whose family moved to the kibbutz, fell in love with Nili. I don't think there was any point for them putting this into the book. In fact, once it is revealed that he loved her they don't really go into detail too much about it later on. Another problem I have with the book was that the pace drops off a lot after the early chapters. After Glen got stabbed, the book's pacing gets very slow. Of course the murder mystery is still in the spotlight of the book but the book started to show relationships more often than before.

Broken Bridges by Lynne Reid Banks, is a book that involves a little mix of mystery, the Israeli culture and religion, and a little bit of action and issue. Nili, the main character, is Jew who has just returned to Israel with her Canadian cousin Glen. Nili witnesses her cousin Glen's death in Israel, but the killer's accomplice saved her life. Then she is sent to the court to testify against the killer and his accomplice, but she makes the wrong choice because he saves her life. I really wasn't interested in this book because I like more of adventure, mystery and horror type of books and it just didn't grab my attention. The whole Jewish religion and culture is also something in which I'm not interested. I also didn't like the plot.
This book didn't grab my attention because the plot didn't seem interesting to me. I like more adventure books than a story or big problem type of a book. In this book the issue is that Nili, a Jewish girl, and her "ben-dod" "son of her uncle" in Hebrew, visits Israel. Her cousin Glen was stabbed and Nili was the witness of it. After that Nili is sent to the courts to testify to judge whom her cousin Glen's killer and accomplice was. What she does is tells the judge that neither one of them are guilty and lets them get away. Her brother Nimrod realizes what she has done is wrong and tells her that she should've testified against them and had them either killed from the death penalty or put in jail for life. I also like books that grab my attention from the first chapter. In the first chapter in this book it just talks about Nili and the set up of the visit to Israel. I didn't find that interesting.
I also don't feel that I can relate to this book because I'm not Jewish and I can't really understand with some of the customs and traditions besides what I've learned in class. The Jewish religion is a religion to me that I'm not that interested or active in learning about it.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes books that has a little mix of mystery, a big issue, and books or anything else that has to do with the Jewish religion and culture. I would recommend this to teens or adults because I don't think that this book would be comfortable for younger children to read, basically because of the plot and the storyline. It might seem interesting to them. I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who has the same interest in books that I do, which is more mystery, horror, and adventure in the plot and characters. I wouldn't recommend this book to younger kids under the age of twelve or thirteen because they probably wouldn't understand the plot or the focus on one religion or culture more than any other, and that's the Israelis. They might not really be interested in this book. But overall, I didn't like the book but I know that there are some people who will or might.

It's 1992, less than a year after the second Intifada, and there is an Israeli murdered in the streets of Israel. Focusing on the Middle East issues between the Israelis and Palestinians, Lynne Reid Bank's book, Broken Bridges, is about a murder and the troubles in a war-inflicted society.
Glen Shelby, from Canada, and his cousin Nili, an Israeli, are on their way to Nili's home, a kibbutz (a community that works together to create a profit), in Israel. However, with no transportation back to the kibbutz (due to miscommunication), Glen and Nili decide to walk because Nili knows the way. On the way to the kibbutz, while walking through a Palestinian village, Glen is brutally struck down by two Arab murderers. Nili, however, is spared for an unknown reason, and is given the challenging and demanding task of identifying the two murders that assassinated Glen. This tormenting loss splits friendships and causes much catastrophe throughout the family tree.
Meanwhile, the story extends to the two Arab murderers and their attempts to escape from Israel so that they will not be killed because of their crime. One of the murderers, the older one, Mustapha, is taken into captivity and is seen in the line-up by Nili. During the murder, the younger man, Fiesal, wants to kill both Nili and Glen- only Mustapha stands in his way, and stops him from killing Nili. Now at the line-up, Nili must choose whether to kill or save the man, who saved her life, or to kill or save the man, who killed her cousin.
While this book creates personalities for characters with three-dimensional characteristics, it soon becomes uninteresting and unexciting. Eventually the excitement fades, as the book slowly drags on. This is exactly why t he book was dull- it dragged on and on. Also, this book is biased towards the Palestinians, against the Jews, Americans, and other Israelites. Lynne Reid Banks describes the army as barbaric, and that they had no reason to commit these actions. These actions consisted of supposed beatings and attacks against the Palestinians. With this point she is wrong- she doesn't say what sparked the army's repercussion. What sparked the repercussion? The violent and killing Palestinians, who started to throw rocks and shoot at the Israeli Army, who were forced to take action and do something in return. So they did- but how many beatings there were like the ones in the following passages, is unknown. While talking about the second Intifada, Banks deliberately attempts to insult the Israeli Army when she has the "wise" Grandpa say, "... They caught them; they tied them up; they took rocks and clubs; they bashed their arms with them. It's very hard to break a man's arm that way. I'm quite sure that often they didn't, that it was just... heavy bruising. A beating. It was a punishment that fitted the crime. " (237) Then the grandpa is interrupted, but soon continued, saying, "Later his officer got his unit together, and asked who was having problems with the orders. Only Yoni put his hand up. His officer said if he didn't have the stomach to do his duty, he didn't deserve the benefits of security earned by other men. He ordered him out on patrol with other men who- who were willing to do it, who did it without feelings. He told me he saw things he wouldn't have believed, beatings that went on and on..." (238) In both of these times, Banks makes the Israeli Army look like barbaric animals, despite the fact that they're not. She tries to explain the army's ways, and then poorly does, only not fully explaining. Banks tries to tell the full army stories- but she fails miserably and therefore the book is biased against the Israelis.
This book is geared for grades 6 through 10; however, the book may not be entertaining enough for these children. Due to how impressionable these young children are, I suggest that this biased book is not read.

Broken Bridge is a murder mystery. It brings a personal feeling to the conflict in the Middle East that is killing its people and bringing sadness, hatred, and the want for revenge to its nations. This tale of a brutal murder being witnessed by the victim's cousin creates mixed emotions for its readers. Nili Shelby, who witnessed her cousin Glen's, murder, is confused whether or not she gave the right answers to the police after they mauled her with unneeded questions for a long time after the murder. Keeping your interest high, the author creates a novel of twisted feelings that you will never want to put down.
The plot of Broken Bridge is strong but the points of what Banks is trying to say are basic. Within all its confusion, the telling is the simple point of how the suicide bombings are bad and the violence needs to be stop if the nations ever plan to overcome their endless religious, economical and political differences that is causing terrorism within their borders. Characters in this book are believable and although you can't relate to them, it is easy to feel for them because the plot of their lifestyles and loss of a loved one that causes them to fall into an abyss of confusion and shaky choices they had made in the past. Nili's choice to unveil the identity of the man who accompanied killing Glen but saved her and then not admitting that he was in the lineup showed that she was strong and still had hope that the prejudice between the Palestinians and Israelis could be forgotten and eventually put in the past. Although you can feel for the characters, it is difficult to try and remember certain aspects or actions that they did because there are so many characters in the book. This causes your knowledge and need of some characters to be non-existent to make the book just as good if not better.
Broken Bridge is a deep book that, although might be better if it had fewer characters, still gives a personal view to the endless controversy and conflict in the Middle East. Being a longer read, it takes a while to understand and enjoy this book has too much confusion an intertwined issues to be liked or even understood by a young adult who doesn't have extensive knowledge on the Arab/Israeli Conflict. For whatever reason, I recommend this book to high school or adult readers who have an interest in the Middle East and would like a personal view of what its like to live there.

The attack descended upon them quickly and silently. The two Arab men moved swiftly towards the two Israeli children, walking casually in the streets of Jerusalem. When it was over, the boy was dead, the girl somehow saved from the terrible attack. Broken Bridge by Lynne Reid Banks is a book of intrigue, power, and conflict. Nili, the main character, must face many problems with others and conflict within herself. She must overcome those problems while she still does not know whether to turn in the man who saved her from the fate her cousin Glen met, or to have him go free and include the rest of Israel in his terror. She lives in a small community with many of her family members.Nili's brother, the troublesome, problematic Nimrod, does not think she should let him go free. Nili's family wants to find out who did this to their relative, and why. Lynne Reid Banks presents a profound opinion about the Israeli/ Arab conflict and gives an interesting perspective about it. She does this by not only telling the story of the Israeli kibbutz where Nili lives, Kfar Ode, but it also showing the opinions of the Arabs who killed Glen. Broken Bridge is skillfully crafted, as the book creates images in your head, and it is also an interesting read, although there are many characters and sometimes is hard to follow. Because the characters in this book are many, the story can be confusing sometimes. To understand the opinions of the characters, you need to have a more advanced or understanding about the Middle East. Readers can relate to many characters and how they feel, and the characters have many sides to think about. Also, there are many strong opinions that make the book better, and the author's message is fairly clear. Her message is that even if something tragic happens to a person, even if they are in a war with those people, that they can overcome their sadness and hatred. Another message is to stop such hatred and dislike between people before it happens again. This book wants you to understand that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict could be resolved, and that this should never happen again between two peoples. The author wants the conflict to end, so that Arabs and Israelis can live with each other. This book would be good for any older young adult reader, because some things may be too advanced as you do need to know a little about the Middle Eastern conflict to understand the book as the author wants you to. The author also interchanges English and Hebrew sometimes, and for younger readers, this may be confusing. Although this book is a fairly fast read, it is an agreeable and likeable read. This is a good book for a middle school class because if they are studying about the conflict at the time, it is an interesting read to understand the conflict and how strong biases and opinions can be between each other.