Monday, August 3, 2009

Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo


Plot Summary:

Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo. This book did remind me of the Harry Potter books but it held its own story line. The extraordinary powers of the Red King were passed down through his descendants and Charlie Bone, being one of them, has the ability to hear photographs speak. He discovers this while looking at a picture of a couple with a baby and a cat. Because Charlie is one of the Red King's chosen, he is forced by his grandmother to attend the school for gifted students, Bloor's Academy. There, he meets others, who like him have special powers. This is a typical good vs. evil novel. Charlie is determined to find the baby in the photograph. Later, Charlie discovers that the infant in the photograph was given away and is at the very school Charlie is attending. Charlie discovers that Dr. Bloor and the wicked head boy Manfred are keeping a girl, Emilia Moon, under hypnosis. Charlie manages to break the hypnotic spell on Emilia by using the stupid box he had all along. As you can tell, I didn’t like this book. The themes are very similar to the ones in Harry Potter. For example, the similarities of not knowing what really happened to his father, and also the notion of other students not liking him, not to mention his terrible relatives and the eerie school. Charlie does indeed have character concepts such as courage, kindness and coming to terms with grief.

Impression about the book:

My impression about Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo is that the similarities between the Harry Potter Series were substantial; it did not take away from this storyline. This book has its potential despite its similarities of the Harry Potter Series

Reviews / Reviews Excerpts

Because of the similarities between this book and the Harry Potter Series, I think this book has not been as popular. This book does hold merit, and it has not been given a chance to flourish.


Suggestions for library use:

Librarians could use this book as a comparison to the Harry Potter Series or a different style along the same storyline.

No comments:

Post a Comment