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Reviews for The Machine Gunners

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    A window on wartime Britain4

    Anthony Marinac This is an extraordinary book, which should be read by adults as well as children. It is not extraordinary because of the central plot, which after all is fairly straightforward. It is extraordinary for two other reasons. First, Westall has captured the wonderful normalising capacity of children. These children live alongside death and the threat of death. Theirs is a violent world. And, while they are clearly bruised in some ways, they do their best to take it in stride. They speak almost casually of the deaths of friends and community members, because to do otherwise - to confront the true gravity of events - would have been overwhelming. Second, this is an extraordinary book because each of the main (child) characters splendidly protrays one of the basic stereotypes of home-front Britain. Chas is a juvenile version of the "dependable Tommy", Cem is the cheerful working class Brit, Clogger the strong silent type, Nicky the stiff-upper-lip gentleman (or what passes for such in Garmouth), and tom-boying Audrey, who will "only do kissing" is the younger sister of the girl who goes off to do 'men's work' in the munition factories all day then to the dance halls at night. And yet, despite representing stereotypes, the characters are maintained well enough that you hardly ever notice (and certainly never regret). I also enjoyed the fact that Westall does not squib the ending. If this was an American book, it would have all turned out right in the end, with some sort of patriotic moral to the story. I won't spoil the ending for those who are yet to read the book ... but Westall does not take the easy way out. Highly recommended. And never mind the suggestion that the book contains a lot of violence. It does ... but less than 5 minutes on any first-person-shooter video game. by Anthony Marinac

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