Johnny and the Bomb [Import] [Audio CD]

Terry Pratchett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2007 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

It's May 21 1941, thought Johnny. It's war. Johnny Maxwell and his friends have to do something when they find Mrs Tachyon, the local bag lady, semi-conscious in an alley ...as long as it's not the kiss of live. But there's more to Mrs Tachyon than a squeaky trolley and a bunch of dubious black bags. Somehow she holds the key to different times, different eras - including the Blackbury Blitz in 1041. Suddenly now isn't the safe place Johnny once thought it was as he finds himself caught up more and more with then ...

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—This trilogy ends with a bang. Having stumbled upon a way to travel through time, Johnny knows exactly when a German bomb will be dropped on his English village. Time travel turns out to be tricky, however, as it takes Johnny and his friends several trips to alter history just enough to save their town, but also to ensure that everything stays the same when they return home. Adding to the suspense is the imaginative vehicle of a crazy bag lady's squeaky cart to time travel, often with unpredictable results. The climax is reached at rocket speed as Johnny becomes increasingly aware of the many dimensions of time and ultimately relies on this ability to save the townsfolk. Pratchett deftly weaves alternate realities together to form a satisfying conclusion, keeping confusion at bay by treating the weightier issues of time travel with his trademark humor. Alternating between 1990s Britain and World War II, he offers plenty for thoughtful readers to mull over even as he pokes fun at the genre. While there is little connection to the other books in the series, Johnny's quirky sidekicks are back, each sidesplittingly portrayed and effectively advancing the plot. It is Johnny who cares most about the effect the war will have on his sleepy town, and up until the very last page, readers will, too.—Emily Rodriguez, Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Complex, funny and, above all, impassioned.” (Kirkus Reviews ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Audio CD
• Publisher: Audiobooks (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1846576660
• ISBN-13: 978-1846576669
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 0.9 x 5.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,020,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( P ) > Pratchett, Terry

More About the Author

Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was fifteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, in 1983. In 1987 he turned to writing full time, and has not looked back since. To date there are a total of 36 books in the Discworld series, of which four (so far) are written for children. The first of these children's books, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, won the Carnegie Medal. A non-Discworld book, Good Omens, his 1990 collaboration with Neil Gaiman, has been a longtime bestseller, and was reissued in hardcover by William Morrow in early 2006 (it is also available as a mass market paperback (Harper Torch, 2006) and trade paperback (Harper Paperbacks, 2006). Terry's latest book, Nation, a non-Discworld standalone YA novel was published in October of 2008 and was an instant New York Times and London Times bestseller. Regarded as one of the most significant contemporary English-language satirists, Pratchett has won numerous literary awards, was named an Officer of the British Empire "for services to literature" in 1998, and has received four honorary doctorates from the Universities of Warwick, Portsmouth, Bath, and Bristol. His acclaimed novels have sold more than 55 million copies (give or take a few million) and have been translated into 36 languages. Terry Pratchett lives in England with his family, and spends too much time at his word processor.  Some of Terry's accolades include: The Carnegie Medal, Locus Awards, the Mythopoetic Award, ALA Notable Books for Children, ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Book Sense 76 Pick, Prometheus Award and the British Fantasy Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book in Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell series, March 24, 2003

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Johnny and the Bomb (Hardcover)

In my opinion, Johnny and the Bomb is the best book in Terry Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell trilogy. While classified as juvenile fiction, this book bears the strongest resemblance of the three to Pratchett's Discworld ideas and characterizations, containing much more social commentary, satire, and sidesplitting comedy than Only You Can Save Mankind and Johnny and the Dead. For such a normal twelve-year-old kid, Johnny Maxwell has some amazing adventures. This time around, he becomes a time traveler. Old Mrs. Tachyon, whom we have met briefly earlier in the series, is now revealed to be something more than a crazy bag lady; she is a time-traveling crazy bag lady. When she turns up injured, Johnny and his friends summon an ambulance for her and take her trolley cart (complete with her ornery cat Guilty) to Johnny's garage for safe keeping. Johnny notices that some of her bags seem to move of their own accord at times, and this discovery quickly leads to an episode of quite unexpected time travel. Eventually, the gang (Johnny, Wobbler, Bigmac, Yo-less, and Kirsty) go back in time to 1941, the very day preceding an unexpected and accidental bombing of one section of town by German bombers. They try to be careful not to mess the future up, but Bigmac finds himself in trouble with the police, Wobbler is assailed by a brat who keeps calling him a spy, and somehow the future gets mucked up a little bit in the process. Finding their way back home to the future is a difficult task; arriving back home without Wobbler and having to figure out a way to go back and retrieve him is even harder, especially since it involves convincing the 1941 authorities that the town is going to be bombed at a specific time.

The characters of Johnny's remarkable friends are fleshed out in this novel to a much greater extent than they were in the previous two novels. Yo-less, a black kid, is less than pleased to find himself dubbed Sambo by the folks living in 1941, and the extremely forceful young Kirsten is almost as upset about being treated like a "little lady." Johnny, for his part, often finds himself putting his sanity at risk by contemplating the ways and whims of time travel. I found this book to be hilarious; the time travel part of the tale is a little wild and crazy, but hypotheses about the different legs of the Trousers of Time is vintage Pratchett material. Old Mrs. Tachyon is a wonderful character, seemingly rather insane based on her thought processes and tendency to spout gibberish all the time, she is perhaps more sane than anyone else around her; time traveling is enough to warp anyone's mind, Johnny reasons. I was rather delighted to hear Mrs. Tachyon mumble the words "Millennium hand and shrimp" at one point because these are the very same words often spoken by Foul Ole Ron on the Discworld. This adventure really is the type of thing you might expect to find on Pratchett's famous planetary creation, and I daresay any Discworld fan should enjoy this book immensely. I find myself wishing for more Johnny Maxwell stories; I feel as if I know these characters now, and they are a fascinating, increasingly funny bunch of guys to hang around with.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming, May 18, 2010

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Johnny and the Bomb (The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy) (Paperback)

Johnny Maxwell is an ordinary boy, living in the all-too ordinary town of Blackbury. However, when he discovers that a crazy old homeless lady is really a time traveler begins to wonder what is really going on. There was a terrible incident during World War 2 when a whole street in Blackbury was wiped out (the "bomb" of the title), and something seems to be pushing him towards doing something about it. Now, Johnny and his friends are in a race across the decades to make a real difference in their world!

This is the third book in Terry Pratchett's charming Johnny Maxwell trilogy. The story is quite great, pure Terry, with lots of interesting characters and happenings. The storyline is wonderfully interesting and complex, as history bends itself it pretzels as Johnny and his friends have adventures.

If you like good fiction, and I mean great fiction, then I can't recommend this book enough. And even though it is part of a trilogy, you can read it by itself and feel like you missed nothing. This is a charming book, with interesting characters, and a wonderfully entertaining storyline. I highly recommend this book!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another adult hooked on this supposed kids' series, October 31, 2006

By 

R. Kelly Wagner "[e-mail]" (MD, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Johnny and the Bomb (Hardcover)

For the Terry Pratchett fans out there, nothing more need be said. It's Pratchett, you want to read it, the only reason you've been hesitating is because it's marked as a kids book (juvenile, young adult...) But this one isn't just for kids. As with any Pratchett book, there are layers and layers, and some of them wouldn't be obvious to kids at all.

For example, kids who have only seen the Batman movies, and not the original TV show, will miss it entirely when Mrs. Tachyon is saying "dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner..." and continues a few more times between interruptions, finally ending with "dinner, dinner, Batman!" which is where adults (at least my generation) will realize she's not saying dinner, she's humming the theme song. Also, kids the age of our protagonists, 13 or so, may not recognize the "red shift" when they get to it; that's usually covered a bit later in the science curriculum, such as college physics.

The protagonists are Johnny, and his friends Wobbler (who wobbles), Bigmac (who is large), and Yo-less, who is apparently the only black in Blackbury who doesn't say yo. They are joined in this book by Kirsty/Kasandra (she changes her name each week), who is hyper-intelligent and socially even more inept than the others. Each of this team has his own strange store of skills or knowledge. These talents turn out to have entirely different implications when travelling in time than they do in their own time. Bigmac's car-stealing abilities (which some parents may object to in a kids' book) turn out to be impaired when trying to steal a car that doesn't have power steering and power brakes. On the other hand, Yo-less's lack of cool is suddenly changed when he puts on period clothing and suddenly looks, as Johnny says, as though he plays the saxophone in a band. Yo-less does, though get exposed to the more primitive social prejudices of 1941, as does Kasandra. And Bigmac finds out that the skinhead symbols and attitudes that he wears only as a social item suddenly have real meaning, and it's not pleasant. OK, there's a bit of a moral or two snuck in here, about thinking about what things mean. There is also at least one moral that readers one and all will ignore, just as the characters do, about following advice (and about giving it).

Johnny has been working on his World War II project for school since the previous book, "Johnny and the Dead." One of the funny bits in the book is how, whenever a kid claims he's doing "a project," he winds up with all sorts of information that is unsuitable for kids, and/or hitherto classified or secret; the remembered horror of school projects makes all the adults give in so that they don't have to think about it any more!

Other reviewers have described much of the plot, so I won't repeat it here. One thing that some readers may wish to note about this plot is that it isn't just time travel, it's alternate history as well, and for kids this may serve as an introduction to the whole sub-genre of alternate history. Meanwhile, some of the high points:

* Mrs. Tachyon's cat, Guilty - and his tastes in food.

* The ice that forms on the characters during their last-minute rush for the air-raid siren.

* The importance of pickles.

The series has no noticeable sexual content, and no real bad language; the most dangerous things in it for young readers are the ideas, which may make them *gasp* think! It may also make them lifelong Pratchett addicts. In the opinion of an existing Pratchett addict, there's nothing at all wrong with that!