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Mister Pip
Mister Pip
Author: Lloyd Jones
After the trouble starts and the soldiers arrive on Matilda?s island, only one white person stays behind. Mr. Watts, whom the kids call Pop Eye, wears a red nose and pulls his wife around on a trolley, and he steps in to teach the children when there is no one else. His only lessons consist of reading from his battered copy of Great Expectati...  more », a book by his friend Mr. Dickens.

For Matilda, Dickens?s hero Pip becomes as real to her as her own mother, and the greatest friendship of her life has begun. Soon Mr. Watts?s book begins to inflame the children?s imaginations with dreams about Dickens?s London and the larger world. But how will they answer when the soldiers demand to know: where is this man named Pip?

Set against the stunning beauty of Bougainville in the South Pacific during the civil war in the early 1990s, Lloyd Jones?s breathtaking novel shows what magic a child?s imagination makes possible even in the face of terrible violence and what power stories have to fuel the imagination.

From the Hardcover edition.
ISBN-13: 9780676979282
ISBN-10: 0676979289
Publication Date: 5/20/2008
Pages: 272
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 3

3.5 stars, based on 3 ratings
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

ARReader avatar reviewed Mister Pip on + 38 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
This book was recommended to me by an friend of mine who is an editor. She said many book clubs in have read this book and have found that it is a book worthy of much discussion. I must say I could not put this book down and that I will be recommending it to my Book Club. It's amazing to me how it parallels with "Little Bee". It is certainly a book that stays in your mind, and leaves the reader asking herself many questions and experiencing many emotions. If you haven't read this book you deserve to read this wonderfully written, tender book. However, be prepared for a rollercoster ride!
reviewed Mister Pip on + 26 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
I was disappointed, would have done better as a long "short story" sad and grisly in places.
LeahG avatar reviewed Mister Pip on + 320 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This was a very interesting and well told story, but it does have a very gruesome scene towards the end that is still giving me nightmares.
reviewed Mister Pip on + 330 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
From where the first chapter begins to where this books ends is nothing short of a surprise. Usually, you can pick up a book, read the first chapter or two and know the direction that the writer wants to take you - not so with Mr. Pip. What begins with a classroom enjoying Great Expectation will lead the reader to a devastating end that has a young child rebuilding her life --with the help of Charles Dickens and an unforgettable teacher lovingly call Mr. Pip.

Told from the perspective of young Matilda, the reader is introduced to Mr. Watts, a white man who has come to a small island near Papua New Guinea to teach the local children. However, his teaching is a little different then what you would expect. His whole curriculum is based off Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

Amidst the racial conflicts between the blacks and the redskins, Mr. Watts, or Mr. Pip - as he wants the children to call him, begins the Dickens tale and quickly draws the children in, while gartering the mistrust of many adults, into Pips world and thereby captivating the children during the liberation struggle that is going on around them.

This is no sweet little tale, the times and people are brutal, but with determination, Great Expectations, Mr. Pip and Matilda's story will live on for many generations.
reviewed Mister Pip on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I probably would have liked this book better if I had first read "Great Expectation" by Charles Dickens. The book makes comparions between the life of "Pip" of "Great Expectations" and the lives of the characters in this book.
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reviewed Mister Pip on + 330 more book reviews
From where the first chapter begins to where this books ends is nothing short of a surprise. Usually, you can pick up a book, read the first chapter or two and know the direction that the writer wants to take you - not so with Mr. Pip. What begins with a classroom enjoying Great Expectation will lead the reader to a devastating end that has a young child rebuilding her life --with the help of Charles Dickens and an unforgettable teacher lovingly call Mr. Pip.

Told from the perspective of young Matilda, the reader is introduced to Mr. Watts, a white man who has come to a small island near Papua New Guinea to teach the local children. However, his teaching is a little different then what you would expect. His whole curriculum is based off Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

Amidst the racial conflicts between the blacks and the redskins, Mr. Watts, or Mr. Pip - as he wants the children to call him, begins the Dickens tale and quickly draws the children in, while gartering the mistrust of many adults, into Pips world and thereby captivating the children during the liberation struggle that is going on around them.

This is no sweet little tale, the times and people are brutal, but with determination, Great Expectations, Mr. Pip and Matilda's story will live on for many generations.

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