The Trenches

Title: The Trenches

Author: Jim Eldridge

Publisher: Scholastic Ltd.

Place of publication: United Kingdom

Year of publication: 2002

Number of pages: 140

Found book: Christian Heritage library

Story Review:

I think this book is called “The Trenches” because it takes place in world war one which is known as the trench war. It is called the trench war because it was mostly trench fighting. This book mostly took place on the western front and the place where the main characters were fighting for was a place called Passchendaele ridge. The main characters in this book are Billy Stevens and his friends Rob, and Charlie. The problem in this book was that the Germans were getting too close to France and Britain so they had to drive the Germans back into Germany. They had a hard time defending themselves because the Germans were so dug in and both sides were losing thousands of men a day. Billy and Charlie were in the Royal Engineers the engineers laid cable and fixed the cables. Rob was in the infantry who fights in the trenches. In the beginning of this book the year was 1914 and when this book ended it was 1918. Four of Billy’s friends died in the war by an explosion or being hit by a piece of shrapnel and Rob died by disobeying orders. The reason Rob didn’t obey because when the whistle blew to go over the top of the trench Rob didn’t go because he thought it would be suicide so they tied him to a post and shot him. This book is about the men in world war one telling about the experiences they had.

Christian Perspective

I don’t think this book was written on a Christian perspective because when his friend died he said “thank God it wasn’t me” and if he was a Christian he would not be so scared to die. I think they are not also Christians because they will never pray and there was only one mention of God in the entire book and it wasn’t really that positive.

My thoughts

I chose this book because I enjoy studying history and especially the world wars and because it looked interesting and I don’t really like fiction books I only like realistic fiction or nonfiction. I really liked this book and even though it was fiction it still was realistic. I would recommend this book to anyone who is like me and enjoys studying history because it is not far off the truth.