Tin Soldiers

by Ian Bone

Michael Tonkin, seventeen, is just ‘hanging’ at school until one day he unleashes the demons at a friendly soccer match when he nearly strangles Ahmad, a Lebanese boy from the opposition team. Everything starts to close-in—guilt, fear, Ahmad's crew—until it ends on a lonely highway with Michael bashed and broken by the side of the road. With his memory partially lost, what is left of Michael now? How will he rebuild himself into a man? Michael struggles to remember the truth, to put himself back together. He turns to the men in his life—his father, a Vietnam War veteran, and his uncle, a brilliant drunk. Michael must choose if he wants to be a player in the ‘game’, where hatred, fear and anger shape the lives of those around him. He must choose if he wants to be a Tin Soldier.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

I am an author of books for young readers and young adults. I am Australian, and my books are published in Australia, the USA, the UK, Germany, Korea, Brazil and Finland.

My novel, The Song of an Innocent Bystander is being adapted into a major feature film. My children's book series, Philomena Wonderpen, has been bought by an International media company to be adapted for television.

I teach writing and I work as a video producer and e-learning developer in my spare time!

Reviews

[Zainab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking back, I really did enjoy this book. You find many books from Australia and you can see how multicultural we are, but usually those books show the positive outcome. This is an interesting twist I reckon, and gives a little bit of insight on both sides which I loved.
Deffo worth the read.

[William Freeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up by chance thinking it would be a quick read but life got in the way for a while. Finally finished as my reading mojo is returning and it was quite an interesting book but I would query its young adult status as nearly more adult definitely 16+ ending fell a little flat but all in all an enjoyable read.