Saturday Book Review: A Medal for Leroy - Michael Morpugo

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One great thing about having a slightly older child now who is advanced at reading is that we are filling our house with fabulous books that we can both enjoy. Michael Morpurgo books certainly fall into this category so I was delighted to be sent a copy of his latest novel to review:

Michael really has a great way of story telling that draws you in. I found myself unable to put this down and was reading in bed until the early hours!



This is another historical novel based upon a boy born in World War Two but with a story linking back to World War One. The book honours the memory of a real life war hero Lieutenant Walter Tull who was killed in action in 1918. Despite his heroic actions he was never awarded a medal as he was black. It's shocking to modern day people to realise that our forces were so racist that coloured service personnel were almost never made officers and that they were also omitted from medal awards.



The fictional story is about Michael whose father died whilst serving in the RAF during World War Two. He is brought up in London by his mother with regular visits to his aunts by the seaside. It takes the death of one his aunts to reveal a family secret that will eventually take Michael as a grandfather to the battlefields of World War One to honour the grandfather he never knew.



A poignant story for teenagers and adults a like. It did bring tears to my eyes...

100 Books in 2012 - Update I

Regular readers will know that I signed up for a second year for the challenge of reading 100 books in a year from Book Chick City (having failed last year!). I am once again using Good Reads to track my progress and rate my reads. This year I am trying to remember to record the books I have read to my children as well as this must run into the dozens over the year!


This year so far my track record is looking good:

That's apparently 6558 pages already in 42 days! So what have I been reading?

 

As you can see its a mixed bag but a few from the same authors. So I'll pick out a few highlights.

Garth Nix - Keys to the Kingdom Series

I have read other fantasy works by Nix but hadn't read this 7 book series. They are in the teen fiction section of the library which I love to dabble in! They follow the story of accidental hero 12 year old Arthur Penhaligon who is chosen as the Rightful Heir to the Keys of the Kingdom whilst having an asthma attack during his school cross country lesson. Of course the current holders of these keys aren't going to give them up without a fight! Each book tells the tale of a different key. None of them are hard to read but very enjoyable.

Michael Morpurgo - War Horse

Having seen the movie I had to read the original book. Its a lot less sentimental than the Hollywood makeover and its all from the view point of Joey the horse. Again this is official a children's book but I would recommend to adults too.

New authors

I like to try out some new authors to vary my reading. So far this year I have discovered Terry Brooks and Elizabeth Moon in the Fantasy section of my library. I read the whole of one trilogy by Moon and I'm waiting for some more Brooks books to come back in! Her books are in the vein of Tolkein with elves, dwarves and magic as well as human battles. The Brooks ones are darker and so far lay out a post apocalyptic United States laid waste by man, bio weapons and demons.

New books by old favourites

I love being given book tokens at Christmas enabling me to make the most of the January sales to complete collections by well loved authors. This year I got Christopher Paolini - Inheritance, Bernard Cornwell - Death of Kings and Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man's Fear. A mix of fantasy and historical fiction continuing previously well loved stories.

Books I read with my children

My children have inherited my love of books and have a good selection on their shelves. It does help that I sell Usborne books to boost their home libraries. You can see a few of these on the current list. They also love modern favourites such as Stick Man. Now my daughter is into chapter books so there will be a variety of new ones appearing soon but they take a while to read at a chapter a night!

So it's looking good so far but I think I'm a bit weighted towards fantasy so far and need to branch out more! Watch this space for future updates...