I didn't enjoy it.
It's slightly clever. And the basic plot is OK: the spoilt king turns out not to be and the malnourished, flame resistant boy is the true king. There is a sub plot with a neighbouring dragon family which is resolved in the resolution of the main plot and everyone lives happily ever after except for the false king (and his various victims along the way).Several people perish is fairly dire circumstances. There are some black inner dialogues from supporting characters. And this is all done tongue-in-cheek with no real attempt to deal with the horrific reality that this points to. In a sense this is a sub-genre of children's literature, but to do it well you need a really solid, sympathetic main character so that there is some kind of substance to the whole. Thompson lacks this.
It's fairly easy to read, notwithstanding the interrupting (and irrelevant, apparently humorous) footnotes. It might be funny if you're the right kind of kid at the right kind of age.
I think what I'd like to discuss if one of my kids were reading it, would be the way we think one thing and say another to get what we want. And the way we try and use rules to get people to do what we want. I think he shows the negative aspects of both of those in such a way as to demonstrate that people are completely manipulative. There isn't one character who isn't manipulative in the book, even (and especially) the good guys.
The usefulness of truth would also be good to chat about, given that truth is central to Christian thinking. How is truth useful where someone is volatile and corrupt? Isn't it better to lie? How do lies make things worse in the book? How could they have made things better? How can you tell the truth in a way that doesn't make things worse?
I'd give it 1 star out of 5. It's possible that I'm way too old for this book to be even vaguely entertaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment