The Freedom Tree (Puffin Books)

James Watson

ISBN 10: 0140310215 / ISBN 13: 9780140310214

Published by Puffin Books June 1978, 1978

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 39115

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Freedom Tree (Puffin Books)
• Publisher: Puffin Books June 1978
• Publication Date: 1978
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140310215
• ISBN 13: 9780140310214
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Condition: USED Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • KIDS Fiction Historical

About this title

Synopsis

It is 1936 and Spain is engulfed in Civil War. Sixteen-year-old Will has left the dole queues of Jarrow to enlist in the International Brigade. He's too young to join officially so joins the Six Bells Brigade - a group of young men fiercely committed to the Republican cause. He arrives in Spain to find the Republicans disorganised, ill-equipped and untrained, but he is inspired by their courage and optimism - qualities that help him in the hard months of fighting. His story is one of war, adventure, love, gallantry, humour, brutality and finally, hope.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8 First published in Great Britain in 1976, Watson's book has been reissued for the 50th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War. While the novel is anti-fascist, it is not anti-war. Its finest passages are descriptions of the war, the horrors and pain of its battles, the issues and ideologies that divided the Spanish people and the Western nations. The story concerns the adventures of two young runaways. Will Viljoen, whose father has died in Spain, and Griff, his street-urchin companion, join with older volunteers to escape the British authorities and cross the Channel to France and then to Spain. They become a band of brothers, made up of the stock variety of characters brought together by war: the artist-intellectual, the earthy Basque partisan, the tough-bitten ex-soldier. Heroic volunteer nurse Molly, sister of one of the group, is the only female character and the personification of female dedication. The episodes of trench warfare, imprisonment by the fascists, and the awful bombardment of the city of Guernica, which marks the climax of the story, have the authenticity of eyewitness accounts (which the author acknowledges in his introduction). However, the book has one drawback: the British manner of speech may put off some readers. Yet the descriptions of war make this a valuable historical novel. Shirley Wilton, Ocean County Col . , Toms River, N.J.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.