Choice book report.

For my choice book report I read the book “Elephant Run”

The main character’s name in my book is Nick Freestone. Nick is the son of Jackson Freestone.

In the beginning of the book Nick lives in London with his mother, but do to Frequent bombing runs Nick is moved to live in Burma with his father at his plantation, Hawks Nest. Not far into the book, while Nick is traveling with his father the Japanese invade Burma. Nick is captured and sent back to Hawks Nest to work for the Japanese, under Colonel Nagayoshi. Nick is very tough and at times stupid, and wants to please his father. On his second day of living in Burma Nick gets kicked by the largest timber elephant on the plantation, Hannibal. Hannibal bruises, and even cracks some of Nick’s ribs. Nick knows never to get to close to Elephant without the Elephants Mahout around ( Someone who takes care of Elephants) and is so embarrassed that he bandages his own ribs and tries to act like it never happened, even though he is in extreme pain. Nick is hardworking too, while he stays captive under the Japanese in Burma he is worked like a slave, with little food and drink, and is beaten regularly by Bukong, an older crippled Japanese man. In the book whenever Nick is asked to do less then pleasant things he willingly accepts, at one point to disguise himself Nick has to shave his head and eye browns completely bald to pretend to be a monks Novice. He is interested in many things and loves to learn.  He spends hours reading and learning about elephants and there Mahouts, and while captive at Hawks Hill one of the only things he likes to do is read through Srg. Sonji’s books and learn about Samurais. Nick risks his life by trying to escape Hawks hill and Save his father and friend’s brother from a P.O.W camp, when there is a good chance of getting caught and dying. While they go to save Nicks father they see him being buried, which Nicks doesn’t know that his father alive, he hardly makes a sound and keeps them all from getting caught and dying. Nick is very kind and understanding too, even when his father could potentially die he is still usually calm and keeps composure. He is very curious about things and this often gets him in trouble, the first thing he should of done when he saw Hannibal was run, but he stayed still and didn’t move and got kicked and cracked several ribs because of it.

 I though the Book was very interesting and was fun to read. It took place in Burma and has a lot of interesting things to learn about the Burmese Culture. Like Elephants and there Mahout riders, or how some people who live there believe nats control things, like crops and need sacrifices to be pleased and grant good weather, crops. The book wasn’t confusing and but still had enough going to keep it interesting. The book had a good length too; it was about 300 pages which seemed just right. It didn’t drag on and get boring, but I was still satisfied with the ending. I like how the book had lots of exciting moments were you were really interested with  what was going on and wondering what was going to happen to the characters.  I like how in the book seems kind of mysterious, at Hawks hill there is a secret passageway  which leads all around the building, with secret gun stashes rubber ear holes for listening in on any conversation. I also liked how the book was written because it was very descriptive and gave you a very good Idea of what it was like to be there and witness the events that went on.  I would recommend this book to people who wanted to learn about Burmese culture, and about elephants and mahouts, there also was some Japanese culture, it talked about Haiku, a form of Japanese poetry. The book was pretty long and had a few parts which were hard to understand so I would probably recommend this to someone in JR High or higher. This would be a good book to read for book group, because I think there are a lot of interesting things to talk and debate about.  I think this book would appeal more to a boy, then a girl because a lot painful things happen and it’s told from a boy’s perspective.  All in all I liked the book and would rate it 4.5/5