Customer Reviews

Ghost Boy

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ghost Boy, by Iain Lawrence, is the story of an albino boy named Harold. An albino lacks coloring matter in the skin, hair, and eyes, and so is very white in appearance. Harold lives as an outcast for the first part of his life, until he runs away to the circus. He is adopted by Princess Minikin and Fossil Man. For the first time, he begins to feel accepted by others. He meets another albino, the Cannibal King. He falls in love with Flip. Harold even teaches the elephants in the show to play baseball. But Harold finds that even here, there are the "freaks" and the others that are considered normal, and he is confused as to which group he belongs. Ghost Boy is an unforgettable book that entertained as well as captured my attention. I give it five stars and highly recommend it. It was an interesting book that held many emotions, including sadness, happiness, mysteriousness, suspense, humor, and anger. Ghost Boy helped me to understand the struggles and pain of those who feel they are different

No two people are exactly alike; it is our differences that set us apart and make us unique. This is precisely the topic that author Iain Lawrence addresses in Ghost Boy. Through his use of visual imagery and foreshadowing, Lawrence is able to create an adventuresome tale of a boy who grows up to understand more about the world in which he lives.

Since the story is easy to read, it is the passages of lush imagery that keep the interest of the advanced. The entire story is based around Harold, a teenage albino boy who has no friends. He lives in a small town where his unusual looks are target for the other kids to bully him. His "skin like rich white chocolate" and his "eyes [of] such a pale blue that they [are] almost clear, like raindrops" make Harold extremely self-conscious about himself (1). However, through his growth and development, Harold comes to accept himself, despite his unusual appearance. Lawrence poses the question of who is to decide what makes someone normal in the first place?

Adding to the suspense that moves the story along is foreshadowing. When Harold decides to run away and join the circus, he meets the Gypsy Magda. She reads his tea-leaves one night and predicts three major events to happen in the near future. She mentions a young child that will be on death's door, yet will be saved, she talks about a great danger, and she claims that a devastating tragedy will occur. Around the middle of the book the first two predictions come true. The reader is then left wondering if any of various small occurrences could be the big tragedy that is predicted. However, it is not until the end that the reader realizes exactly what the tragedy is.

Although Ghost Boy is suitable for young adult readers, it is the more mature readers who will be able to pick up on the hidden meanings and lessons in the text. Lawrence encourages one to be more accepting of those who are different, while also writing a story to be remembered.

The ghost boy was a really great book. The book was really intresting it started getting really scary in the middle of it . The ghost boy is a book that suprises you because it is a mind twister. I would really consider teenagers to read this book for a report , because they will be surprised when they find out what happens.

First, the story takes place in the 1940s (Harold's brother is MIA in WWII, not in Vietnam, as the Amazon.com review erroneously states). Second, the writing is superb. Mr. Lawrence makes you feel emotions without telling you what to feel. His characters are very real. His setting (a small, struggling circus, traveling the western U.S.) is historically believable, peopled with 'freaks' who suffer as sideshows, unable to find any other way to live because of the bodies they were born with, but peopled also with 'normals' who are either afraid of or cruel to the freaks. Harold, the 14-year-old albino central character, tries to straddle both groups of people. He finds his niche in the circus as an elephant trainer. I am admittedly ignorant about such things, but Mr. Lawrence again makes the storyline with the elephants--crucial to the plot of the novel--seem believable. My only complaint about this otherwise very moving book has to do with the writing at a crucial death scene near the end. I do want you to read this book, so I will try not to give anything away here, but the writing at this important point becomes formulaic in the dying character's last words and even Gomer Pyle-like (People actuallly say "Gosh!"). This did detract from the impact of the death, unfortunately, but I still very strongly recommend this book. Five stars for a book with a major flaw says a lot!

I haven't read a book this good since "Where The Red Fern Grows". I liked the way it told the story of running away. Something that all kids think or dreama about. It pointed out the fact that whatever you look like is not who you really are. I definately would recommend this book to anyone. It was one of those books that I couldn't put down.

This is the best book I have ever read in my entire life.
Harold is an albino - a person with no color in his skin, hair, and eyes. When he runs away from the taunting kids in his town, he meets a pair of circus "freaks" - Tina, a woman the size of a doll, and Samuel, a giant man covered in hair. They give him a ticket to the circus they work in and invite him to join them. Which he does, becoming the elephant trainer, trying to teach them to play baseball.
Life seems good for a while - Harold is accepted in the circus, with the exception of a boy named Ramon who torments Harold just like the children in his town, calling him "Maggot" and "Whitey", but another friend, a horse-back-stunt-riding girl named Flip makes up for it.
A lot happens in this book, there isn't enough room to write about it all, but it talks about how Harold changes, etc., etc. I won't reveal the ending b/c it'll ruin the book, but here's a warning: it is MAJORLY sad. I am not kidding when I say I cried. This is a terrific book, but make sure you have a pack of tissue nearby.

The book I chose to read was ghost boy. It is about a 14 year old albino boy named Harold. In liberty, the city where he lives, kids tease him all the time about having white skin. One day, the circus comes to town and Harold decides to run away with it. He meets a very large man and a very small woman. They all became close friends. While in the circus he teaches elephants to play baseball. I liked this book because the boy doesn't have any friends and finds friends that everyone considers freaks.
I would recommend this book to any one who enjoys an adventurous story because the boy travels all across the country with the circus to see the mountains that his brother says he would see when he got back from serving in the army but, he never came back.

Harold is the only albino living in his small town, and, therefore, he is an outcast. He can't see very well and can't tolerate the sun very well, and all of the other kids in town see him as an easy target for their torment. Harold is miserable. The only thing sustaining him is the thought that his brother, missing in action, will come home on the train some Saturday and the two of them will ride off together to Oregon to live happily. His mother doesn't think his brother is ever going to come back, though. She thinks he is dead, just like Harold's father went to war and ended up dead.

One weekend a circus comes to town. Harold speaks with some of the circus freaks who tell him to come along with them when the circus leaves. Harold is torn; he can't decide. Then his mother and her new husband treat him badly at home and Harold finds out that there is another albino in the circus. He is sold. He leaves his home that night and goes to join the circus and to meet this elusive albino who travels alone and leaves before the rest of the group.

Huge storms hit the area and the parts of the circus, formerly traveling in a caravan together, are separated. Harold is in a trailer with the freaks of the circus, struggling to catch up with the rest of the performers. He becomes close with these people who were born with differences and were outcast like him.

But then when the circus comes together again, Harold is given a job training elephants--a job for which he has a real gift. For the first time he is accepted as a normal person, doing a normal job. In the circus there are the normal people and there are the freaks, and the two groups don't mix. Harold is being pulled in two different directions. Will he be true to his first friends, the circus freaks who asked him to join them, or for the first time in his life will he be accepted by the regular people as one of them?

I liked the descriptions of the circus, the way things worked and the way the people interacted with each other. I also liked the journey that Harold went on through this book and how he found himself and became stronger because of it.

I didn't like that Harold just left his home in the middle of the night, and that he left his dog. I also didn't like how there was such prejudice in the circus against the freaks, and how they were treated badly even there.

I teach special ed with kids with severe behavior disorders. I've read Ghost Boy to or with every class for several years, ages sixth grade through twelfth, and the kids are always very responsive to the story and characters. It's a wonderful book for everyone - engaging, moving, fun and thought-provoking. (And, teachers, there's plenty of material that lends itself to lessons aimed at the visual and kinaesthetic learners- very "sensory" story.)

This book is a really good book. I think so because it attracts the reader's attention and draws them further in page by page. The adventure in this book is amazing, and the way Iain Lawrence writes makes you feel like you actually know the characters. You think growing up is hard enough as it is...... but this book gives you a fresh perspective of growing up. Yeah, a normal kid has problems with their crushes and their parent, but get a load of this: Harold's father died in the war, his brother/best friend wast Missing In Action, his mother seems to have forgotten about his father and immediately found another guy that seems to hate Harold, and on top of that, he is an Albino. Whitey, Maggot, Ghost Boy, whatever you want to call him, is having a really tuogh time. AND he has the world's biggest crush and a totally chic, tan, blonde, babe. You thought you had it bad? And what did you do about it? What is Harold supposed to do? I highly reccomend this book to you.