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The 2008 Award

Mister Pip

Mister Pip

by Lloyd Jones


 

 

Nominated by:

  • Auckland City Libraries, New Zealand
  • Dunedin Public Libraries, New Zealand
  • Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand
  • Wellington City Libraries, New Zealand

 

Publisher of Nominated Edition:


Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd

ISBN: 9780143020899

 

the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors
ABOUT THE BOOK

Matilda lives on an island somewhere in the Pacific-but this is no paradise. Civil war is a fact of life, though at first the village is largely left alone by the soldiers and the rebel fighters. The school is closed but then Mr Watts, the only white man on the island, steps forward to do what he can to help. He begins by reading Great Expectations aloud to his students, a chapter a day.
Stories flourish on the island. While the lives of Pip and Magwitch and other Dickens' characters are transformed in their new tropical setting, the locals come to the schoolhouse to tell their own tales-about the meaning of the colour blue, about broken dreams, black birds and devil women.

In Matilda's eyes, Pip is as real as any living person. He has become her friend. She writes his name in the sand and decorates it with shells. That's where the redskin soldiers see it, and decide they must track this stranger down. Who is this Mr Pip? The search to find him will have devastating consequences for Matilda, Mr Watts and the entire village.

(From Publisher)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lloyd Jones is the author of the compelling novel Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance, shortlisted for the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2002 Montana Book Awards. His previous novel The Book of Fame won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2001 Montana Book Awards and the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize in 2003.

LIBRARIANS' COMMENTS

An outstanding novel that has received critical and popular acclaim.

A book about reading and what literature means, a book that stays with the reader long after they have closed it.

Outstanding story about Mr Watts the only white man on a Pacific Island who takes over teaching at the school after a civil war.

A wonderfully imagined and skilfully constructed novel about growing up, survival and the search for understanding. This novel shows how the meaning of names, the power of words and the pleasure of books can change lives.

 

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