Joel’s Book Review

Title: A Boy At War

Author: Harry Mazer

Publisher: Scholastic

Place of publication: U.S.A in New York

Year of publication: September 2001

Number of pages: 104

Where did you find the book: C.H.S Library

Story Review:

I think this book is called A boy at war because even though he wasn’t a real soldier this war really affected him because this attack killed his father and injured his friend. This book mostly takes place in Honolulu at Pearl Harbour in December of 1941 the main characters are Adam, Davi, Martin, Adams father and mother, and Adams sister Bea. The main event this book was about was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour on Sunday, December 7, 1941. Just hours before the bombing Adam, Davi and Martin planed to go fishing so they went down to the harbour and the found an abandoned boat. Martin and Davi thought it was the pig god providing for them so they got into the boat and paddled away. When they started fishing they heard planes, at first they thought they were American planes until they saw the Japanese flag on the bottom of the wings. Because Davi and Martin were Japanese they started cheering so Adam tried to kill them but then Martin fought back. While they fighting the wash off the airplane flipped the boat and then when Adam was on the shore he saw Martin and Davi floating in the water and he dragged them ashore. After they where ashore Adam noticed Martin had a big chunk of wood right through his chest but they were both alive. So Adam carried Martin onto the dock and set him down and just realized he had been shot and the bullet went straight through his hand. Then a car came and picked Martin up it was a ambulance and the car brought him to the hospital and he lived but the piece of wood was an inch from his heart. While Martin was in the hospital a marine came up to Adam and thought he was in the navy so he gave him a gun and the group of sailors came to and they were guarding a road. After awhile Adam snuck off and went home were his family was holding shovels to defend themselves. Every one said there was no sign of his father because his father was in the navy and after a couple days they got a letter saying their father was missing and later they realized that he had died. I think the theme of this book was that even though you are not a soldier you can still be greatly involved in the war.

Christian Perspective

I do not think this book was written from a Christian perspective but I do think the characters in the book at times showed Christ like qualities like when the Japanese were attacking he didn’t run away and leave his friends to die even though he could have died. He also ran a long way carrying his friend to save his life. But the boys in this book I don’t think were Christians because Adam tried to kill the other boys.

My Thoughts

I chose this book because I read the one after it (Heroes don’t run) and I also like reading books about history and the world wars. I really enjoyed reading this book even though I usually dislike reading books. This book I thought was very interesting and the way he wrote the book you can just picture what is happening in the story. I thought the author really did a good job describing what is happening and just using really good detail.