Skip to main content

Tall Story

Image
By Lauren
Tall Story
By Candy Gourlay
David Fickling Books, 2011
295 pages. Fiction.

Sixteen year old Bernardo has lived with his aunt in the Philippines his whole life, while his mother, stepfather, and younger sister Andi live in Great Britain. He is finally granted citizenship and comes halfway across the world to live with them. Bernardo has many growing pains to grapple with, including living with a full-time sister, learning a new culture, and being 8 feet tall! In his old village in the Philippines, the people hailed this giant boy as the prophesied, legendary figure who will save their town. So, Bernardo has some guilt about leaving, especially after a massive earthquake devastates the community.

Candy Gourlay has written a very memorable book. Her use of Tagalog and British terms and customs provide for a unique tale. The characters all deal with culture shock and family conflict, but they still have a lot of love and patience for each other. Tall Story is written from both Bernardo's and Andi's points of view, and the stories mesh well. It's definitely great for sport-loving boys, as Andi is a basketball fanatic, and the sport features prominently throughout. There are old legends woven in, but the medical realism of Bernardo's struggle with gigantism (a pituitary dysfunction) is equally interesting.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

By
If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.
Post a Comment
Read more

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

By loo
Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more