Tales of Real Escape

Usborne True Stories

by Paul Dowswell, Nigel Reece

Written in a journalistic, true-to-life style and filled with colorful illustrations

Genres: Nonfiction, True Story, History, Adventure, Suspense, Childrens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Paul Dowswell is a British writer of nonfiction and young adult novels who has written over 70 books for British publishers. He was a senior editor at Usborne Publishing, then went freelance in 1999.

Reviews

[Mr Michael R Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

These short stories tell the tales of various escapes. Pretty thin on detail I suspect that these books are aimed at mostly occasional readers. Easy reading, the stories move along at an easy pace, none too long.

[John Yelverton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a pretty amazing book to read, and what's even more impressive is that all of the stories are true!

[Johnny Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The part of this that impressed the most was the diversity of sources. South American prison break, English prison break, South African prison break. Americans, Frenchmen, English, and German doesn't seem that broad but, traditionally, the winner is the hero but not in a few of these stories.

The stories are pretty clean though there is a murder in one and the last story has some cannibalism - both are not described but referenced.

[Sandra Strange · Rating 2 out of 5]

These short narratives tell histories of escapes: mostly from some kind of captivity--jail, prison, military, etc. Aimed at middle readers, they are entertaining and succinct, fictionalized and made dramatic with conversations and other personal details. However, so many of the narratives feature people you don't want to escape--nasty criminals and traitorous spies! I wish the author had told the stories of people you WANT to root for.

[Adam Jarvis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of this book was good and interesting, but the writing style was not cohesive at all. There were random colloquial phrases that didn’t fit with the rest of the story. Also, the reading level seemed to yo-yo throughout, as some paragraphs sounded like they were written at a second grade level and others at a high school level.
This last part is probably just personal, but I found trying to read it out loud felt very difficult and stilted. There was no flow.

[The Purple Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read with fascinating stories we could research further; however, the story about Hitler aiding Mussolini’s escape was too white washed. The book is a collection of people you hoped would get out and those who deserved to remain, but Hitler and Mussolini are next level evil, and shouldn’t have been put in this book unless written more true to their character.

[Stacey Socholotuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't love a great escape story? Some of these stories are of notorious characters in history as opposed to everyday people. Nonetheless, upper elementary students will likely be enthralled by the retelling of these daring escapes.

[pluton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an easy book to read with very brief prison escape retellings, few details. The last story is made up based on true stories and it reads noticeably worse. The accompanying small maps help with the visualization.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after reading the true tales of survival by Paul Dowswell, and it did not disappoint. it is a mix of thrill and adventure stories and the best thing is that they are all true. I would recommend this book.

[Tristan E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Usborne book written for 10-11 year olds. I read it to see if it was suitable writing for this age (before I gave it them to read) and found myself finding it quite interesting.

[Laura Talley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting! Several tales of breathtaking, suspenseful, nail biting escapes and how they did it.

[16jeremys]

In the book True Escape Stories the author, Paul Dowswell, goes into many details about prison life, and how many of the famous prison escapes have happened. It gives you an inside perspective on the escape, something that you don’t normally get. This detail helps you feel what the prisoners are going though.

This book takes you into many different first person experiences of prison escapes. These are all narrated by the author, but it includes dialogue between the prisoners during their escape. It also includes diagrams and maps to help you visualize what is going on. One chapter that was very good was the first chapter. This was about an escape from the virtually escape proof Alcatraz. This chapter takes place in the 1960's, and talks about the escape of bank robber, Frank Morris. It starts out with Morris arriving at Alcatraz, after escaping from his other prisons. Morris is a very sharp intelligent person and by the first day he is already planning his escape. Shortly after his arrival he meets fellow prison mates, Allen West, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin. A year later Morris learned very important information. The fan in the ventilation shaft above his cell had been remove. Right then Morris got to work planning the escape. Morris and his crew get to work for days in and out. When Morris finally decides to check out this ventilation shaft he learns the unfaithful news that the shaft was bolted shut. Will Morris and his crew find another way out of the "Rock" or will they spend many more years in this gruesome prison.

This book was not only a great book but in a way it also wants to make you stay out of trouble or you could end up like these people in the terrible prisons. It gives you information that you probably would have never gotten without actually going to jail. The book shows the effort that these prisoners have to put in, to escape from these prison. It makes you feel safer about the people that we are locking up, because very few people people in history have actually gotten out. This makes me want to stay out of trouble because I don't want to through away ten years of my life. It shows you what happens after these prisoners are out of prison. You learn that even once you have escaped from prison you still have lost parts of your life. I enjoyed this book a lot. I am not a non-fiction reader, but I still enjoyed this book. I would rate this book 5 stars and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys getting into a book for a week or two.

[Ulises Ruiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was great and I really liked it. I would recomend this book to everyone who likes to figure out how things happen like in this book about prison breakouts, if you like or want to know how they did it i would recomend this book.Paul DowswellEscape

[Loise Enad · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was interesting to know the different prisoners strategy of escape plans from before that somehow they luckily escaped. It was very clever and too know that these stories are factual and that some of these stories are turned into a movie and this certain prisoner wrote a book about his escape success. For instance the movie: Escape from Alcatraz which took place at the real prison. Anyway I didn't know about this book until I searched through our school's library lol.

[Zackery · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked true Escape Stories because it wasn't just one story it was many combined in one book. Most of the stories were interesting because they told u how they died or got captured again at the end of the story.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the ideal book to read in blocks. I brought it to work and was able to read approximately 1 story per break which was ideal. Each story was very different and I never felt like I was reading the same story over and over. A short yet interesting and varied read. 4/5

[Ulan imut · Rating 3 out of 5]

deg-deg-an kaya lagi lari bareng mereka..
para tahanan yang melarikan diri..
sayang dowswell kurang terinci menerangkan nya..

[Carol Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neat little book detailing escapes from Alcatraz, war camps,penal colonies, the Berlin wall, etc. What I learned from this book is that I would rot in jail as I have no self-preservation skills.

[louis tomlinson's girlfriend · Rating 1 out of 5]

i couldent get through it

[Tantri Setyorini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ceritanya lumayan menarik. Ada beberapa yang terkenal seperti pelarian Mussolini dan Escape From Alcatraz. Ada ilustrasinya pula. Bacaan ringan yang menyenangkan

[Carter Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book was very interesting because it shows some of the true escape stories that have happened around the world. Read if you are interested in escapes from prisons.

[Will M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this book 4 stars. This book had short and long stories. It was a wide viorty of stories.

[Jbaccon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I read the whole thing in one hit and kept telling my husband juicy true facts so for someone who avoids real life, I have to say it was actually very compelling.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 2 out of 5]

868th - 2011