A Topical Terrorist Tale (The Terrorist - Caroline B Cooney)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	The Terrorist - Caroline B Cooney
Date:	03/04/03 (1650 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Currently very appropriate, Unusual, unpredictable story, Well written and exciting

Disadvantages: None

If 11 year old William Williams (known as Billy - not-surprising with a name like that) was an op writer, he’d probably have written about his experiences of living abroad. He did, you see. American by birth, he was shifted to London for a year due to his father’s job. Billy didn’t mind, though. He liked the excitement of it all – taking the tube to school each day, getting a paper round just like in the States, having his grandmother back home send him care packages of Oreos and other goodies for him to eat (if he was hungry or homesick) or sell to his school friends for a huge profit (if he was in business mode). Life was just fine and dandy when one morning someone hands him a package as he’s coming out of the tube station, telling him his friends who have just run off ahead of him had dropped it. He takes it without thinking but realizes within seconds what it is – a bomb. In a moment of bravery he wraps himself around the parcel just before it explodes, sacrificing his own life to save those of the other travelers around him.

The rest of the book focuses on Laura – Billy’s older sister – as she tries to come to terms with her loss, and find answers to all the questions in her mind: Why that day? Why Billy? Was he a child picked at random, or was it planned? Is someone after the family? The children attended an international school in London. Many of their fellow pupils have diplomats and dignitaries as parents, but not the Williams family. Laura and Billy’s mum looks after them and the house, and their father is a factory manager. Hardly the type of people usually to be targeted by a terrorist attack, but that is in deed what this appears to have been. None of it makes sense, and the strain is making Laura fall apart. The detectives assigned to the case tell her she’s paranoid, and shouldn’t be suspecting all her friends of being the culprits, but are they right?

When deat
hs occur in the initial chapter of a book, you often don’t feel as though you’ve lost a friend, but in this case you do. In the very first pages we learn so much about Billy – his character, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, how he thinks – that you can really feel the loss to, well, the world, when the explosion occurs.

The book is also interesting because it tells us a lot about American life – the school is made up of students from Iran, Iraq, Russia and Egypt among other places, and everything from Thanksgiving to Easter is explained to them by the Americans who “rule” the school. Considering it’s written by an American author and aimed at an American audience, it includes a scary amount of anti-American sentiment. This book was published in 1997 – before September 11th, and before the current war on Iraq, but I imagine sales are going through the roof about now. It’s an excellent book for children who don’t quite understand the whole war / terrorism / hating America debate because although it’s fictitious, it could very easily be true. It’s not so frightening that children reading it who live in London would never want to go out again, but it is thought provoking. There are lots of “helping” books for young children, with everything from divorce to going in to hospital being covered, but older kids could often use some support too. If you have offspring – boys or girls – aged 10+ and are having trouble talking to them about the current world situation, or you feel they still have worries and can’t quite grasp some of the things going on, this book might help.

It’s a well written book, entertaining without being distastefully amusing, full of suspense and drama, and I’d recommend it at any time, but especially now with what’s going on out there.



The Terrorist by Caroline B. Cooney

IS
BN: 0590228544

Buy it for the bargain price of £2.88 at Amazon

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