It was time to dig into a classic again. I heard a lot about Lord of the Flies and how it inspired many an author to write their own stories. So, into the flies I dug. The story (for those who have not read it) is about a group of boys that find themselves stuck on an island without adults as a result of a plane crash. It follows the boys as they try to find a way of survival on the island together. The boys struggle with issues of authority, order, disagreement, division, selfishness and much more. In the end you are left with the thought of how parallel this whole story plays out to the world of adults. The story runs much like a kids version of survivor but it took me a while to get into because the word choice is slightly different from the YA stuff that I have been reading and it’s British as well. Once I got rolling with it, I really began to like it.
This book did not disappoint in the end. I was left uneasy at times because I couldn’t help but think how this could actually play out given the right set of kids. I kept imagining kids that had passed through my classroom over time and it became disturbing at times as well. I am not sure that the book would carry a middle school kid that is struggling in the reading category from beginning to end if they were to take it out for a drive, but a regular reader would probably find it worth the effort. This is one of those books that you are left wondering if younger readers would get as much out of it as adults, but as an adult it’s hard to work out if the book was good because of the hindsight we carry into reading it or because it just a good book. With that being said, I would love to hear the opinion of a middle school guy on this book. Although many classics can hardly live up to the hype (in my opinion) this one did the job for me and earns the title of classic.
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