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Captain Mack
In this International Year of the Older Person (Towards a Society for All Ages) James Roy has written an exceptional book, devoid of sentimentality, about the friendship between a young boy in his first year of high school and an elderly man living alone in a nursing home. Danny is a quiet studious boy who has a severely turned eye which makes him the butt of jokes by the class bullies. An only child of a widower, he suffers alone, prejudged by his teachers. Captain Mack, an 84-year-old World War II veteran, thinks his nursing home is a POW camp and convinces the misfit Danny into helping him escape. Captain Mack is an adventure about heroes and unlikely friendships.
- GenresChildrens
117 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 15, 2016
The story has still been a lingering memory since my primary school days. Revisiting this story decades later, I can appreciate the gall Mr Roy has to give the tale its depressingly hopeless ending. Unlike the stories you read as a kid about kids making great things happen, overcoming the impossible etc, is unrealistic. The protagonist, Danny, though he tries to save his friend from a life a poorly financed nursing homes and a lack of freedom - cannot do anything to prevent the inevitable.
Reading this story as a child of around the same age, I disagreed with the message and booed it away. But, and I'll admit how depressing it sounds, as an adult I can't help but agree that children - with all spirit and will - can do jack to help the Mack.
Appraisals aside, I still found the story to be quiet slow at times, and Danny didn't really make for an interesting protagonist. Upon reading the sequel, Billy Mack's War, I found it hard to believe that Mack, an abusive father decades prior, was now a charming elderly man. The link was a bit of a stretch to believe. Additionally, I felt that this novel suffers from what I call "Wives of Bath syndrome", a children's novel with messages only adults could really understand upon reflecting on their own childhood.
So, should you read this book?
Read it if you want to, I'm not your mum.
Reading this story as a child of around the same age, I disagreed with the message and booed it away. But, and I'll admit how depressing it sounds, as an adult I can't help but agree that children - with all spirit and will - can do jack to help the Mack.
Appraisals aside, I still found the story to be quiet slow at times, and Danny didn't really make for an interesting protagonist. Upon reading the sequel, Billy Mack's War, I found it hard to believe that Mack, an abusive father decades prior, was now a charming elderly man. The link was a bit of a stretch to believe. Additionally, I felt that this novel suffers from what I call "Wives of Bath syndrome", a children's novel with messages only adults could really understand upon reflecting on their own childhood.
So, should you read this book?
Read it if you want to, I'm not your mum.
Displaying 1 of 1 review