Paul Dowswell

Some 3,000 soldiers on both sides were killed on the very last day of the First World War, in the eleven hours before the Armistice came into effect at 11am on 11 November 1918. This novel, aimed at younger readers, though worth reading by anyone, tells the stories of some of those who died, and some of those who survived, during those last few hours, based around the doings of three young men, one British, one German and one American. There are poignant stories of those who die in moments show more of carelessness or through casual mischance, often at the hands, or rather the bullets, of a sniper hidden in the forest. There is great anger expressed over the fact that the Armistice does not come into effect for six hours after it is signed and yet some people on all sides fight right up until the end, and many soldiers did not know the Armistice had been signed for much of that time. These stories are in a way more poignant and heart-rending than many others - to die so near to the end is even more than usually tragic and wasteful of young lives; some of the minor characters who do so have actually managed to survive for four years at the Front. A gripping and fairly short read. show less

I’m a sucker for historical fiction of any kind, but I especially love the stuff concerning the 20th century.

I bought this book eons ago, in my first year of Sixth Form, and have only just now read it. I remember a classmate had bought the same one and seemed to be enjoying it, so I had decided to do the same.

Dowswell’s novel, aimed at young adults, is about a young boy named Piotr (Peter later) whose family is killed during the occupation of Warsaw in World War Two. Left alone, he is show more sent to an orphange, and eventually chosen to be adopted by a good German family, Nazi sympathizers who look at him and think he is the poster boy for the Hitler Youth. Peter looks exactly like the boy on the poster, in fact – he has incredibly Nordic features, with blonde hair, strong jaw, and toned build. For all intents and purposes, he should be the perfect fit for a Hitler Youth. His new family actually enroll him in one of the Hitler Youth groups, as they do to all their other children, and at first he’s excited. His lifelong dream has been to become a Luftwaffe pilot, and this could very well be his ticket into all this. His adopted father is a professor at a university in Germany, studying genetics – more specifically, he’s studying ways in which genetics can tell apart Jews from non-Jews. And Peter, in the beginning, is 100% OK with this.

But Peter, thank God, suddenly realizes that maybe all this isn’t too good an idea.

You see, Peter isn’t German. He may look German (or like the Aryan ideal that Germany loved to talk about back then), but everybody knows that he isn’t. He’s an outsider in the new community, no matter how hard he tries to fit in. And he develops strong friendships with young teenagers who aren’t exactly sympathizers with the Nazi ideal. He listens to swing music and BBC radio, broadcast from England. He feels sorry for the Jews being forced to do manual labour around the city, and tries to help them. He fights back with his thoughts when people talk about how great Hitler is. He isn’t convinced. And that is important enough to save him from Germany in the end.

Peter’s story feels like it could be real – the story of a boy who wants to leave a country that he realizes is not as great as it seems. He becomes part of an underground network – a very illegal one – that helps Jews, and he eventually tries to skip town. The whole thing is a very real and very raw telling of what could possibly have happened during World War Two. If you think about it, really, it can’t have been that all Germans were as ecstatic about Hitler rising to power as we think they were. While there were fanatics, it can’t have been the same for everyone. And this novel’s last section – its Act Four, if you will – brings it all to a head when a family and Peter try to run away from the hellhole they’ve been living in to a safer place, a neutral place.

(Switzerland, d’uh.)

This book is well researched (and even credited!), and Dowswell put a lot of thought into the writing of it. While it is written for children, it’s incredibly good as a light summer read, and puts World War Two into a different perspective. For a long time, we’ve heard stories about what it was like to be on the Allies’s side, or the Jews’ side. But sometimes we never stop to think what it could have been like for the people living in Germany who just didn’t want it to happen in the first place.

(Please don’t take this as me invalidating the experience of the actual victims of World War Two. It’s just a nice change of pace to have a different perspective to the whole thing, is all.)

Overall, my final rating is a 4/5. Props, Dowswell! show less

13-year-old Sam Witchall has always felt the call of a life at sea, but he's not so desperate as to join the Royal Navy. Instead he finds himself a berth as a ship's boy aboard a small merchant vessel - relatively safe and with chances to return home to see his family and his sweetheart. But Sam's comfortable life aboard is turned upside down when he is pressed into service as a powder monkey (a boy who carries powder to the guns during battle) on the HMS Miranda. Far from a romantic show more adventure, Sam now lives in a world of harsh discipline, bullies, and constant threat of danger.

I'll admit it right up front - I adore ship books. Preferably elegant age-of-sail ships with tall masts any young, spirited protagonists, though any ship will do. Luckily this fit all of my favorite criteria. So it's no surprise that I couldn't keep myself from purchasing this when I saw it. Nor is it surprising that I loved it.

The book's greatest strength is its emphasis on realism. Sam doesn't want to be on board, he's frightened and chafes under the sudden restrictions to his former freedom. He's not extraordinarily clever, extraordinarily brave or kind. He's just a boy trying to make his way out of a nasty situation. And being onboard a fighting ship during the Napoleonic Wars was certainly nasty - about that the book leaves no doubt. It details the poor food, the threat of flogging for any infraction (real or imagined), officer tyrants and the fear of enemy fire. But it also shows the cameraderie, the friendships, the fun had by sailors skylarking in the rigging or singing at night.

This is a great read for those already interested in this sort of book, but there is no quest or great adventure like in Treasure Island or many other young adult ship books; this is more a book about the daily hardships (large and small) aboard a Navy ship of the time - which is fascinating, but not perhaps the best place to start for the uninitiated or those not already bitten by the sea bug.

Also posted at my blog. show less

In a sequel that falls down somewhat in comparison to Powder Monkey, Sam returns to the Navy and is accused of a crime he didn't commit before being shipped off to Australia as a convict where he and his friend Richard once again have to battle for their lives.

What engaged me most about Powder Monkey was the attention to detail of everyday life. Not so much with Prison Ship, as Dowswell describes the way of life in the convict colonies. The tensions of class and status are much more show more apparent in Prison Ship though, and Sam and Richard's time in the bush is the stuff of classic adventure. show less