Blurb: On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with almost everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dicken's classic Great Expectations.
So begins this rare, original story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. As artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a youngorphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing.
Everyone called him Popeye. -1st line.
The cover: The cover reminds me of the books they used to make us read in High School back in Edinburgh. Very simple, mostly beige with a small painting of a Carribean girl reading a book barefoot on a beach. Simple and interesting in it's own way. While browsing the web, I saw some other, more colourful versions of this book cover.
The story: This book actually belongs to Lydia who has been kind enough to lend me this book as part of her book swap project. Siti has also posted a book swap list on her blog. I am delighted that there are book lovers out there who, like me, want to share our passion for reading with others. I asked her to pick any book she enjoyed and she sent me this one. Two chapters into this book, I already feel like this is a special book. This will be one of those books that will inspire (more than any "pure" self-help or motivational books can). I love the premise of this book, that even in adversity, a book can feed the imagination and change a life.
This First Impression is part of my friend CJ's little project on his blog Coffee N Crackers.
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