Setting: In a small town called Wirrawee Time Period: 1990’s Main Characters: Ellie, Kevin (joins later in the book), Robyn, Homer, Lee, Fi Plot: They meet Kevin, they blow up cobblers bay, and they get caught. Other: This is the third book in a series of five books and I wont be telling what happened in the previous books since it will take too much time and work (precious time). But I have done reports on the previous books and you can read them if you are really interested. By the way we need to give these five/six (including Kevin when he joins) people a name because I can’t be saying Ellie, Kevin, Robyn, Homer, Lee, Fi walked…
So lets call them “our friends”. Summary: Our friends are hanging out in Hell (a camp in the bush) and going outside at times to do some exploration. One day they get lucky and spot a work group (the captured people of the city that do the dirty jobs) and Kevin is among them. Kevin also sees them and when the guards aren’t watching he slips of to meet them. He explains that if he escapes the soldiers will kill his mother that is a hostage back in the showground (camp for prisoners).
Our friends come up with a plan and Kevin goes back to the work group and explains it to his working friends. Someone screams that Kevin has fallen into the well (our friends have earlier removed some bricks and thrown in a dead sheep so it starts smelling) anyway the guards think Kevin is dead and Kevin escapes. So now that our friends are reunited, they decide to blow up an important bay that has been used a lot in the war. Now the question was, how would they get in? It was a well-protected area.
When they are walking along the road to Cobbler’s Bay, they see a broken down truck on the side of the road. They decide to investigate but then another truck appears down the road. They hide quickly and watch. Out of the truck, some men that look like engineers come out. They fix the broken down truck and one of them hops in and starts driving.
Here our friends get an idea. The convoys that head for Cobbler’s Bay, they could put a tree on the road so the convoy stops. Then Kevin, who paid attention in the physics lessons, could creep in under the truck and do something so the truck breaks down further down the road. When the convoy leaves the truck for the engineers to come, our friends make their move. Kevin gets the idea of what type of explosives they should use.
They load the truck with fertilizers (which every farm had) and diesel. When enlighten this could make a very powerful bomb. Homer and Ellie jump in the back of the truck and wait for the engineers to come to fix it. After some hours the engineers come, fix the truck and drive towards Cobbler’s Bay.
Ellie and Homer stay in the truck for some hours. When they go out they find out that they are inside a ship. They pour the gasoline over the fertilizer and get ready. They light the fuse and climb up to the deck. They jump into the water and swim for safety but get separated. When Ellie gets out of the water, she heads for their meeting place.
At the meeting place she sees three soldiers pointing guns at her friends. She sneaks up on the soldiers and hits the closest one with a stone. Then she takes his gun and kills the other two. Ellie and her friends run out of the forest and find a car parked on the side of the road.
They assume that it’s probably the soldier’s car. They take the risk and drive the car up the road. But they get caught and are taken to a prison. In the prison they get sentenced to death.
On the day of the execution, an air raid from New Zeeland attacks the prison. It destroys most of the prison so our friends are able to escape. Robyn picks up a gun and some grenades. On their way out a soldier catches them. The soldier tells Robyn to throw her gun down and so she does. While the soldier turns and looks at the other five, Robyn sticks he hand in her shirt and pulls the grenade pin.
She sacrifices herself so her friends can escape (heroic). Shocked, her friends escape. On a field outside the prison grounds of the prison, they see a shot down airplane. The pilot gets out of the cockpit and runs away from the plane.
After some seconds the plane blows. Our friends go talk to the pilot and he tells them that he has a radio and he will soon contact a chopper that will pick him up. Our friends ask the pilot if they can go with. The pilot doubts at first, but after our friends tell him what they have done he lets them come. My opinions: Not bad, in fact, not bad at all. I thought that this was the best book in the series.
It was a great book that had lots of everything in it. I read like 100 pages one time, I couldn’t stop. Now if I read 100 pages in one time, the book is good, trust me. The author John Marsden described the environment very well since he was born in a very small town in Australia. The book is written in first person, out of Ellies view.
Book for Keeps describes it as “a powerful and compulsive read” and I think that they are right. New Words: Falter- move or act in an uncertain or hesitating way. Eradicate- put an end to something. Epilogue. Last part of a book or play. Lush- plants, trees, etc growing thickly and strongly.
