Saving Private Ryan

by Jacqueline Kehl (Adapted by), Max Allan Collins

[Penguin Readers Level 6]

Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon, Saving Private Ryan is a World War II drama set in France during and just after the D-Day Normandy Invasion. While vast military forces converge for one of the most decisive battles of the war, a squad of U.S. Army soldiers undertake a mission to save one man: paratrooper James Ryan, the last survivor of a family of four brothers, the others having already been killed in action. Based on the screenplay by Robert Rodat and Frank Darabont.

Genres: Fiction, War, Historical Fiction, Media Tie In, Military Fiction, School, World War II

103 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Parissa Ahmadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m sorry for all the wars, sorry for all the mothers waiting for their beloved children cause I don’t care what country I live in, I don’t care who is right or wrong. I hate all the old men making wars, killing the young ones...

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

It should be required reading in high school.

[Song · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book! I like it very much.
It's June 9 1944, three days after D-Day. On the orders of the government, Captain Johe Miller and his men go to look for Private James Ryan, whose three brothers all died. They must bring his home. Only two men survived after bring back Ryan, other six died.

I was deep moved by the spirit of Captain Miller and his men, they laughed each other, but they help each other like brothers in fighting.They are brave men. "Boys became men as they cross the killing zone of Omaha Beach--often dead men, but men. Running, shouting, sreaming, crawling on hands and knees, they moved toward the sea wall."

There are eight soliders with Captain Miller, every guy has his own character, like Upham is weak, Capazo likes children, Jackson and Sarge are brave, Millish is expericed,Reiben is naughty and little selfish,Wade is kind. But most of them are dead! Dead for their orders, for their country.

[Pin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story tell about the event in the world war2. In the begining of the story, the united states military fight with the nazi on the beach. It shows a depression about the war. Next, the commander give the order to John h. millier to rescue one soildier fron the battle filed. This soildier is Ryan. He loose all his brothers in the war, so the government think his family should't be loosing anymore. However, the rescue team has to face with the dangerous. The number of the team was decresing by killing. This story show the conflicts between life of one person and life of the rescue team. I really like this story because it make me feel excited in every chapter.

[Addy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the novel I thought it was; Max Allan Collins’s original novel about the movie “Saving Private Ryan” is actually 300 pages long, not 100 pages long, like this little guy I finished today. And this novel is a Level 6 (I don’t really know what that means but I don’t think I am at this level, based on the vocabulary and lexicon; not to brag, but I might be a little higher in reading levels). But it was still a good read. The characters were a little flatter than I would’ve liked, and the pacing was so fast that many details were lost, but it is a challenge to adapt a well over two-hour movie to just 100 pages, and it was a pretty faithful adaptation, so credit where credit is due. And there’s a bunch of fun little activities at the end of the novel that I actually went through and completed, and that was a lot of fun!
Moral of the story: because this isn’t the novel I originally was after, I can’t really rate it like I intended to. But it was a quick afternoon read, and it helps me get closer to my ultimate year-end book goal, so I’m happy.
Now my mission is to find the actual Max Allan Collins novel...

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Stolzmann
Hour 6
Moore
11/3/12
I am doing my book review on Saving Private Ryan, by Max Allan Collins. The main character is Captain Miller, who leads his men on a mission to find Private Ryan and send him home because all of Ryan’s brothers have been KIA “Killed in action” and the military has decided to take measures and send him home so that Ryan’s mother at least has one son left. Captain Miller is a very strong willed individual who was a former School teacher; he has great leadership skills and gets along with his men very well.
The book starts out with a fleet of U.S armada of ships coming ashore and all the men aboard are sick with fear, so was captain Miller but he tries to make light of the situation for his men but they were too focused on what was going on around them. Captain Millers hand was trembling with fear but he kept a straight face and hid it from his men to build their confidence. Once upon the beach captain miller and his men had gotten a first glance at the hell that had been going on during this war, with constant guns firing, bodies of fallen comrades everywhere, and the traitorous sounds of screams while there was nothing they could do but move forward. All this was just the beginning of Captain Miller’s mission to find Private Ryan, for there was still a long ways to go. Along the way the platoon loses good quality soldiers to battle along the way. But the only thing the men could do was move forward. There were also disputes and signs of denial between the squad, thoughts of Ryan not being worth the rescue and or thoughts of him already being dead were at a constant of being brought up out of fear of the men. But Captain Miller kept them strong and brought them forward to finish their mission!
If you look at the Genre, which is Action, Drama and war, to understand the big picture of this book you will most likely see that this is a very dramatic book. It is full of moments that can be highly relatable to a lot of us in society. A lot death is associated with this book and i'm almost certain I can speak for almost all of us when I say that “Death” affects us all in a big way. Death takes someone from us at any given time at any given place, its everywhere and there’s no true way around it. We all lose loved ones and people who are close to us in life and is it fair? Absolutely not; it is just a part of life. And what I believe Max Allan Collins was trying to show us in this book is that, we can work constantly for something, and even if we succeed with that goal life can be taken away from us at any given second; like with Captain Miller, He showed us how to be a hero. He gave his life to find, save and bring back a son to her mother in war, and to fight to the end for his country in a time when we needed true war heroes.
I gave this book a five out of five star rating because I truly believed that this is by far one of the best books I have ever read in my life. It is a true quality piece of writing and I believe that it should be read by everyone who enjoys a good book. I know I will definitely consider reading this book again and I am very happy that I decided to read it.

[Mark Stangroome · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book just laying around at work and so read it over the course of a couple of lunch breaks, it is that short. However, that brevity should not detract from the quality of the book, its' brevity become a quality as it moves from location to location following a small group of soldiers searching for Private Ryan.

I have not seen the movie but have seen the initial beach invading scenes which were powerfully portrayed by Mr Spielberg. In this book there is a good flavour of that horror that allows your own imagination to conjure the scenes and feelings that individual soldiers saw and felt.

This is a good short read, it is aimed at younger readers and would be a challenge for many of them such is the context both in time and how the men are asked to, and ultimately obey, an order whci seems very sacrificial; in so doing they reveal both human strengths and weaknesses.

[Elly Stroo Cloeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik las dit boek net rond de herdenking van D-Day en de landingen in Normandië. Daar begint dit boek (en de film) dan ook: bij de eerste landingsvaartuigen, en de enorme verliezen die er geleden werden. Hoofdpersoon is niet soldaat Ryan, maar een groepje van 8 mannen die erop uitgestuurd worden om hem in bezet Frankrijk te vinden. Ryan is namelijk de laatste van 4 broers, de andere 3 zijn nèt allemaal in de oorlog gesneuveld. De krijgsmacht in de VS weet dat wéér een gezin waarvan alle zonen sneuvelen enorm slecht is voor de reputatie van hen en de oorlog. Daarom moet de laatste Ryan terug naar zijn moeder in Iowa. Die klus is voor kapitein Miller en het restant van zijn bataljon. Hun reis en zoektocht is goed omschreven, met alle ellende van de oorlog en wat humor.

[Gratian Lascu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Am vazut filmul de o gramada de ori. Cartea am cumparat-o cu ceva ani in urma de pe okian.ro si i-a venit vremea. Este varianta rescrisa dupa romanul lui Collins, incadrata nivelul Advance de engleza. Povestea e minunata si recomand citirea cartii dupa ce ati vazut filmul. E mult mai usor sa asociati cateva lucruri :)

[Ranette · Rating 4 out of 5]

this hard fought war book sees a group of men traveling across France to bring back a private Ryan because his brothers were all killed already in the war. They travel quite a ways and then find that the private refuses to leave the bridge he and a small group of men are protecting.

[Aifa Akmalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

this amazing story made my heart tearing because captain john miller was so a brave man. how great the circumtances in world war two that time. BEST BOOK!

[Lovisa ✨️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than I thought. Because I read it for school, I had very low expectations, but it made one think as I remember it

[Jökull Óttarsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the movie tbh

[Laura Beadle · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's such a gripping novel! Yes, there's the film, but this is much different! You feel you the soldiers in closer detail.

[Ahmed El-dressi · Rating 5 out of 5]

فضّلت كتابة المراجعة باللغة العربية لكي تكون لديّ الحرّية الكاملة في التعبير .. قرأت هذه الرواية لسببين رئيسيين الأول : تحسين اللغة الانجليزية لدي والثاني الفضول بسبب عدم متابعتي للفلم.. وقد تمكّنت من التعرّف على مجموعة من الكلمات الإنجليزية الجديدة كما أن الرواية كانت مثيرة ومشوّقة .
الأحداث مستوحاة من الحرب العالمية الثانية وتحديدًا اجتياح هبوط الحلفاء لمدينة نورماندي بفرنسا .. وكيف تمّت عملية الهبوط على شاطئ أوماها لفريق بقيادة الكابتن جون ميلر وبعد النجاة في هذا اليوم تم استدعاء ميلر مع من بقي من فريقه لإنقاذ الضابط ريان وذلك بعد مقتل إخوانه الثلاثة حيث ينص القانون الأمريكي على إعادة الأخ المتبقي إلى أرض الوطن ، وبعد رحلة محفوفة بالمخاطر والمفاجآت يرفض الضابط ريان العودة ومغادرة فريقه والتخلي عن المعركة وبالتالي توجّب على فريق ميلر الصمود والقتال جنبًا إلى جنب مع فريق ريان لتنتهي الأحداث بتضحية عظيمة من أجل إعادة الضابط ريان سالمًا إلى أرض الوطن.

[Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a 100 page condensed version of the movie. This book adds nothing to the story but leaves out bits that the book cannot explain. If you want to know this story, watch the movie.

[Anthony]

Saving Private Ryan
The main reason I chose to read this book was because I found out there was a movie made based on this book and the book was based on a true story. Also the fact that it was a story about World War 2 intrigued me because not many people who served during World War 2 are still alive. A reason I thought this book was good was, that the author, Max Allen Collin is very descriptive in what he saw and what happened. It was so descriptive that I could imagine what was happening in my mind.

Like I said this book was based on a true story. In this, a captain named John Miller is ordered by his superior officer to look for a private named James Francis Ryan, hence the name of the book "Saving Private Ryan". The captain leads a squad of soldiers to look for Private Ryan throughout France. There are hardships, pain, and adventures in this book. If you start reading this book, you won't want to stop.

This book was so interesting, that the first 20 minutes of humanities class was my favorite part of class because everyone would be quite and the whole class would read. Usually the whole class would never stop talking unless the teacher would yell. This was a daily and nice occasion for me. The most memorable part of this book for me was when Private Ryan visits Captain Miller's grave to pay respects.

This book is very informative about World War 2. I suggest this book if you are studying World War 2. I don't suggest this book if you are in elementary school because there are some intense and gory parts in this book. Overall I give this book a 8 out of 10 in terms of information and storytelling.

[Iran · Rating 4 out of 5]

The film begins with an elderly World War II veteran and his family visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-mer; Normandy, France. The scene then cuts to the morning of June 6, 1944, the beginning of the Normandy invasion, with American soldiers preparing for the perils of landing on Omaha Beach and struggling against dug-in German infantry, machine gun nests, and artillery fire, which cut down many of the men. Captain John H. Miller, commanding officer of Charlie Company, 2nd Ranger Battalion, survives the initial landing and assembles a group of soldiers to slowly penetrate the German defenses, leading to a breakout from the beach.
The scene then shifts to the United States where General George Marshall is informed that three of four brothers in the Ryan family have all died within days of each other and that their mother will receive all three notices on the same day. He learns that the fourth son, Private First Class James Francis Ryan of Baker Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division is missing in action somewhere in Normandy. After reading to his staff Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, Marshall orders that Ryan be found and sent home immediately.

[Dimas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ryan continued to speak to his captain. "I think about what happened on that bridge everyday. I think about what we did, and what you said to me. And I just want you to know ..."
.
.
.
Then Ryan looked at his cross and talked to it as if it were a person. "I've tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that's enough. I didn't invent anything. I didn't cure any diseases. I had a farm. I raised a family. I lived a life. I only hope that, in your opinion, I earn what you did for me."

It's been a quite long for me to read a book. At first borrowing this book from my course's library, the only idea I had was I already watched the movie and I forgot the plot--most of the plot. Then I forced myself to read this. In the beginning I was clueless what the story will lead me to. But soon after, it gets interesting. I was overwhelmed by the story. It wasn't a hard book to read but it wasn't easy though. I could easily imagine the atmosphere and the nuance the writer want us imagined about. This is a story of the real horror of a war, but also of courage and self-discovery, quoting the introduction on the very first page.

[Farid Medoukali · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is catchy about "Saving Private Ryan" is the fact that this was a true story that happened during the Battle of Normandy in 1944. the story is about an american army squad that was commissioned to go and save an ordinary soldier who has lost his three brothers and orders were given to this squad which was under the command of Captain Miller to bring back Private Ryan from behind enemy lines. Captain Miller was under the pressure of risking the lives of his squad soldiers just to save one ordinary soldier and bring him back safe to his mother, but he had no choice but to obey orders. the rules in the American army say that when a group of soldiers who are members of the same family are in war and they die and only one remains, he should be brought to his family. the book talks about the bravery of Captain Miller and his squad against the Germain army and their dedication to accomplish the mission even though non of them beleived that the life of this soldier Ryan is worth their sacrifice. the book is told ina nice and smooth manner and reading it was a pleasure

[Samuel Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazingly horrifically gruesome book that contained a lot of intense warfare. This book was a tragic war story of a man whom brothers died fighting in World War II and his mother's grieving caused the military officials to send a small search party to look for a soldier by the name of Private Ryan. An incredibly good story, I loved all of it. While reading this book, I felt like I was in the middle of the battle just as the Americans were fighting courageously for our countries independence. I would have to give this a book a 5/5 since it was so intense, and goes back in history to one of our countries biggest, and most important war. I recommend this book to readers who like drama, fighting, gruesome, and historical books all in one. This book was the full package all wrapped up in one book.

[Zeuskronos · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my fav adolescent books. This one tugged at every heart string I had. I remember reading the whole book in like 3-4 days and I usually take my time with books, it was a page turner for me at the time. I had an avid interest in American history and its wars. Personally I hate war regardless of its so called reasons of necessary evils I never see eye to eye with people who embrace such violence. But the book is more than that. It's a true story that reads like fairy tale with no happy ending. I don't know, it's just the struggle of the sergeant looking for a single man, and the men he sacrifices to save one.Very deep in some parts. The movie does no justice to the book. Read first and watch later.

[Jaakko Kuoppamaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saving Private Ryan
By Max Allan Collins

The novel Saving Private Ryan, I thought, was awesome. It tells about D-day in Normandy, France, and then a squad of men who survived the landing get sent to rescue a Private by the name of Ryan. He had three other brothers, and all died at war. That is why he has to be shipped home to his mother. But the way to Private Ryan is long and dangerous. Can the squad of men save, by risking their own lives, a single life? This book is very realistic and gets you very absorbed into it. I loved it and have seen the movie about 5 times. I love this book and it is one of my all time favorites.

[Charles]

this book is exellent. it takes place in normandy in world war 2 againt the nazi's. private ryan has other brothers that have died in war while he was away so private ryan needs to go back home. so allies are sent out to find him, they go through many battles to get to this guy and after a huge battle together with him they get him back home to his family. this book is great and so is the movie. must read and watch.

[Skrillx231 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book, it has a awesome storyline and very interesting and breath taking characters, it shows us the point of view of the marines in WWII and the sacrifices they make to save the lives of others. It also gives us a deep in-depth of how marines have to cope with the situation and how much they have to go through during the war, including dealing with the losses they suffered and arguments they have during the mission.

[Ali Khalaily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this story as a film not more.!!
But we should not follow the steps and the events in it ..
We believe in peace.... & this book does not ....
There are a many characters that characterized as " The braves of united states" , this is good, but we should know our limits and never surpass it to save our values as a cultured ppl.

[Serdar Çelikus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saving Private Ryan is such a good book which takes place in warfares during the World War II. It describes how to be in all this chaos. It starts with one special event and tells as how it got managed or failed (no spoilers :)) and I realized that it gives us an idea about whole war by just one event. So I strongly recommend this book. This book can be read by anyone who can read.

[Kelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible book. The story, characters, and history incorporated in this book were all top notch. It is still the only book that I've read that has made me cry. Only reason I gave it 4 stars was because books on historical wars aren't my favorite genre of books. But this one really blown me away.

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started and finsihed today. It's a really short book. I loved it!! It was really sad, but overall I loved the relationships that the characters developed in such a short period of time. It had an abrupt ending, and it didn't end how I wanted it to, but it was still an amazing story.

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too violent. Why do people have to fight like that...? I would rather read a romance.