Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones is a 2008 Alex Award winner.
If you've read this book, please leave a comment with your review of it and whether you think other readers are likely to find it engaging (do you think they’d be eager to finish it and perhaps start reading another book when they are done). If you recommend the book, please also state any themes or topics that would be good for discussion. Thanks.
2 comments:
I really liked Mr. Pip -- it's a coming-of-age story set on an impoverished island in the South Pacific temporarily cut off from the rest of the world by war and rebellion. It's a reader's novel -- the last white man on the island volunteers to become the only teacher, and reads to the children from Great Expectations. The narrator, in particular, learns to imagine a world totally different from her own. The novel is almost fantasy-like in its tone, though there are some brutal scenes when the rebel and loyalist forces take turns occupying the little village. The only problem in selecting it is that the novel anticipates a certain affection in the reader for Great Expectations, and while the descriptions of Dickens and his fiction don't occupy a great deal of the narrative, I'm not sure how students will react if they are totally unfamiliar with the original Pip.
I was fairly unimpressed with Mister Pip. The focus was misplaced for the majority of the novel and shifted near the end. I feel the real story lies in Mr. Watts, the mysterious white man who intrigues the reader throughout. Plus, it was lacking significant detail. Artillery is shaking this village yet the author did not cause me to sympathize, he was only stating facts. I was unable to feel the same compassion for Mathilda as she had for Pip. Despite its weaknesses, I feel this was a great example of mental survival in hard times. The villagers were waiting for something to happen and needed anything to occupy their minds and distract them from their hardships.
I think this would also be a poor choice for the Reading Program because of the bad connotations associated with Christianity and possibly with Great Expectations. Religion is always a touchy subject that may cause a reader to have a predetermined disconnection with the novel. The same could be true of those who were forced to read Great Expectations at some point. If one of the main goals of the Reading Program is to attract students, a gentler approach may be suited.
~SJSU student
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