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Sunday, February 19, 2006
 
Noughts and Crosses

Hmmmm. I had higher hopes for this if i'm honest, but my over-riding impression was that it has done well because a black woman chose to write about racial inequality, for children.

So - two races, noughts (with no capital, very clever, we get the device but did you really have to actually spell out in so many words that its 'nought like nil, nothing') and Crosses - with a capital, closer to God (so Cross, look, another clever device) and with words changed into things like Crossmas. Crosses are black people and supreme, noughts are white underdogs and resorting to terrorism to make things right. Yawn.

The book dots back and forth between a nought boy and his family and a Cross girl and hers. The dad goes to jail for taking the blame for his older son who does a bombing and dies trying to escape. The girl is the daughter of the nearly Prime Minister. They fight, young laddie goes off to be a terrorist having just missed seeing said girlie and gone off to be happy with her because he didn't read the letter in time. His cell has to kidnap her, he sleeps with her, he gets caught, she gets pregnant - and well, you can probably guess the end.

I dunno - does writing politically thought provoking books for children really HAVE to include pregnancy, death, teenage drinking, lots of teenage angst, bullying and a seriously spelled out and contrived plot?

I do think we could perhaps do better. But of course, i'd be devastated if someone was so rubbishing of anything i'd written. Sorry, Malorie :(
 
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An attempt to get through everything i haven't already read in the BBC Big Read Top 100 during this year (hmmmm... maybe a little longer than 2004 actually... didn't bargain on the pregnancy and baby!!!!!)
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January 2004 / February 2004 / March 2004 / April 2004 / May 2004 / June 2004 / August 2004 / September 2004 / October 2004 / November 2004 / December 2004 / January 2005 / March 2005 / April 2005 / August 2005 / October 2005 / December 2005 / January 2006 / February 2006 /

Books i have read

Currently Reading: "Holes and Tale of Two Cities"

Current Total: 68

* = On my shelf

~ = In line for my Top Ten 2004

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman ~

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee ~

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell~

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis(all time fave before i started this)

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier ~

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy*

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell ~

22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling

23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck ~

30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens*

35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen

39. Dune, Frank Herbert (gave up)

40. Emma, Jane Austen

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas*

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh~

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth*

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl*

57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden ~

63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett*

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl*

75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt ~

77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins ~

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist

90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho ~

95. Katherine, Anya Seton~

96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer*

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (gave up)

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