Mister Pip

Book Description

Critics

• Pip Pip

  Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones 223pp, John Murray, £12.99 Men who like Dickens are not always to be trusted. In the nightmarish conclusion to Waugh's A Handful of Dust, the civilised Tony Last finds himself imprisoned in a jungle village, forced to spend ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Till the Pip squeaks

  Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones John Murray £12.99, pp240 The dark horse on this year's Man Booker Prize shortlist, which was announced last week, is an affecting tale from a New Zealand author about survival and storytelling during a bloody conflict in th ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Dickens opens the door and they all fly in

  A rather funny premise: a Pacific island in the middle of a civil war, 13 year old Mathilda and her friends are introduced to Dicken's Great Expectations by Mr. Watt, a strange man, the only white man left on the island, who takes on the role as the teacher for the community. Mathilda is introduced ... (continue)

  A rather funny premise: a Pacific island in the middle of a civil war, 13 year old Mathilda and her friends are introduced to Dicken's Great Expectations by Mr. Watt, a strange man, the only white man left on the island, who takes on the role as the teacher for the community. Mathilda is introduced to a new world, centuries old and galaxies away from what she is living (poverty and fear on an island everyone has forgotten) but in reality her world and that of the character Mr. Pip are not so different. As Mathilda deals with normal adolescent issues (learning to separate hereself psycologically from a mother who wants to hold on tight) and some not so normal (missing father and the shocking realities of war), we share a beautiful fable of what reading can do and should be for children.

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  Gail Paris said on Sep 18, 2009 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  This is a surprisingly good book with all the award-winning elements.

  The story was set in the early 1990s when the people of Bougainville fought for independence from Papua New Guinea. Mister Pip was a character in Charles Dickens' 'The Great Expectations', a book used by Mr. Watts, the only ... (continue)

  This is a surprisingly good book with all the award-winning elements.

  The story was set in the early 1990s when the people of Bougainville fought for independence from Papua New Guinea. Mister Pip was a character in Charles Dickens' 'The Great Expectations', a book used by Mr. Watts, the only white man on the island, to teach his students after the island was blockaded.

  The thing I like about the book is its originality. Told in a calm voice by Matilda, a 14-year old girl on the island, the book gave an exotic and idyllic feel at the beginning. I was thus not prepared for all the shocking events, twists and turns as the story unfolded. It's not like anything I have read before. And this makes it such a good read.

  After finishing the book, I have been searching for information and reading articles about Bougainville, trying to make sense of this war. I have not been successful, probably because wars defy all sensible reasons.

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  Tracy W said on Sep 7, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (47)
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• English Books
• eBook 240 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1848541430
• ISBN-13: 9781848541436
• Publisher: John Murray
• Pub date: Sep 04, 2008
• Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover and Others
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Livres Français, Libri Italiani

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