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Impossible! by Michelle Magorian (view source)
Revision as of 14:53, 7 December 2014
, 14:53, 7 December 2014no edit summary
There are rather a lot of people introduced in the first few chapters of the book and I found myself a little bewildered at times with all the different names. However, this didn't matter much as the writing is crisp and fast-paced, and Josie is a believable and likeable child. Inevitably she does get a part in a play, to her Headmistress’s disgust, and then finds herself embroiled in a very unpleasant situation due to mistaken identity…
I have to admit to a sinking feeling when I received this book. It was not the 200-page children’s adult book I had expected, but a 585-page tome to rival the longer Harry Potter books. I started reading on December 3rd, and doubted if I would find the time to finish it before Christmas.
Today is December 6th and I finished it this morning. I read this book with my breakfast, I picked it up every spare moment of the day, and kept reading at night long past my bedtime. It was almost impossible to put down. There’s tension and excitement, both on stage and in the events off-stage, and Rosie Josie proves herself courageous and loyal in many ways.
The fictional families - including Rosie’s Josie’s - are seamlessly woven into the stage history of the era. It took me a while to realise that the locations and theatre groups mentioned were real ones, as were some of the people. Rosie Josie takes part in workshops and a production that actually happened, directed by someone who is, apparently, now considered the founder of modern theatre techniques. I was a little disappointed that there was no epilogue explaining which parts of the book were based on reality, although there were some credits to quotations from the plays and musicals involved. But perhaps it doesn’t matter.
If I have a niggle with the book, it’s that it seems to be overtly educational in places, with slightly forced conversations when characters inform each other about parts of a theatre, or how a film is made. Perhaps this is necessary in today’s society when books are chosen for their value in the National Curriculum. I mostly skimmed those parts: either I knew the information already, or didn’t wish to be educated in the middle of an exciting story. It wasn’t really a problem, since I suspect that these snippets would be very interesting to children. It was certainly not enough of a niggle to remove even half a star from my rating.