Oskar+Reading

Authors: Andy McNab and Robert Rigby Publisher: No. Of pages: Date started: Around about 11th October Date finished: 2nd November Genre: Action Boy soldier is about a boy named Danny Watts who dreams of being in the army. Unfortunately for him, he can’t get in because his Grandfather Fergus was in the army and he was a traitor. Now, Danny and his friend, Elena, are searching for his Grandfather. Although, every move they make is being monitored very closely by “The Firm”. What connection do these guys have with the Fergus Watts case? And was Fergus really a traitor? Or has someone just set him up. This book was very interesting and had lots of action all the way through. I liked the way how they lied a little bit in the blurb. It made me think that Fergus was actually a traitor. I also liked the fact that it was realistic even if you had no idea about what the army did. The reason is that Andy McNab was in the army. I also liked the way that everything was very strategic and it felt as if the bad guys used gadgets and tactics that must have taken the authors ages to think of. I also liked the way that all of “The Firm’s” talking was all in bold so you knew that it was them talking. I also thought it was very clever to have all the code words and abbreviations were listed on a page so when the abbreviations or code words were in the book you knew what it meant and it still had the same effect. It was hard to pick out weaknesses in boy soldier but I found a few. If Fergus wasn’t bad, why did he mastermind an escape from prison with other jailbirds? I found this very confusing. Another thing was that Fergus seemed so evil when he captured Danny, if he wasn’t evil why did he also do this? It seemed to me, that it got confusing from time to time, other than this, it was almost perfect. My favourite character in this book was Danny. The reasons are because he tried so hard to get into the army and was the best out of all the people who did try. And after he got rejected because of his Grandfather being a traitor, he tried endlessly to find him. My least favourite character was probably George Fincham. This is because he was the one who framed Fergus, They sent him acting as a double agent on the SAS team but Fincham organised the FARC to make it look like he was actually a double agent on their side.
 * __ Boy soldier __**

Reading Task 1 Term 3 2009
**Title: Scorpia** Author: Anthony Horrowitz Publisher: Walker No. Of pages: 359 Date started: I started at the start of the holidays Date finished: I finished at around the end of the holidays Genre: Action, Mystery

A group of assassins known as Scorpia have been assigned on a mission to get England and America to hate each other. The only way to do this is to make America do ridiculous requests or millions of London kids will die. Meanwhile, in Venice, Alex Rider is trying to find Scorpia to find out if his Dad really was an assassin. When Alex finds one of the members house he hears the two words, Consanto Enterprises and barely makes it out alive. He then goes above the extreme and meets the man who tried to kill him. He apologises and takes him to Scorpia, There, he meets Julia Rothman. She tries to convince him that his Dad really was an assassin and succeeds. Alex then decides to work with not knowing about their project. But are Scorpia really who they say they are and if not will Alex find out in time?

The things that I liked about this book were that the book was very fast paced and action packed and got my attention. It was a good storyline and it always got you wondering how Scorpia were killing all those people without being there. It also showed me what crazy things people do just to find out what enemies are doing. Although, the two things that I didn’t particularly like was that some of the stunts in the book are some extreme and dangerous that they didn’t seem realistic. E.g. BASE jumping without any experience. Also, at one stage, an MI6 member said that Alex’s father was bad and at the end of the book they said he was good I didn’t like this because it was very confusing.

My favourite character in the book was Alex, because of the bravery he has and shows throughout the book. I also like way that he can never kill anyone that didn’t do anything wrong. And that also proves that his father wasn’t an assassin and killing isn’t in the blood.

My least favourite character in the book would have to be Julia Rothman for taking advantage of Alex and also for lying to him about his father, especially when he was looking for the truth about him. Also, She didn’t really like him and he was just going die if Scorpia had succeeded.

I would rate this book about 8/10 and would recommend this book to people who like fast paced action. This book is hard to put down as it always as something interesting and exciting to read about.