Student Book Review:
Lord of the Flies
by: William Golding
Review done by:
Kira Karbocus
Grade 7
Van Antwerp Middle School
Niskayuna, NY
Lord of the Flies
was a modern classic that I read this year. It is a well written novel, written
by William Golding. Lord of the Flies
had many characters of different and unique personality traits. This is what made
it so interesting.
This novel took place in the early 1900's, on a deserted island. A group of boys
were stranded on this island by the result of a plane crash. With no adults on the
island, they had to survive and wait for someone to rescue them.
Some boys in this group included Jack, Ralph, and Piggy. All three had their own
very unique personalities. For example, Ralph took charge on the island while everyone
was panicking about what to do. He was nominated as "chief." After Ralph was nominated, he had meetings or assemblies, which the kids discussed things like making shelters,
hunting pigs, building a fire, and of course, to talk about the beast. One day, some
kids noticed a large figure on a cliff. They thought it was definitely a living thing. They told everyone else about this beast and that was when everyone wanted
to figure out what it was. This part of the book made it very interesting,
and I couldn't put it down.
In Lord of the Flies
, Ralph and Jack acted as enemies part way through the book. Jack was against Ralph
being chief because Ralph would boss him around and make too many rules. For example,
when meetings were held, Ralph would not let Jack speak, unless he was holding the
"conch". The conch was a seashell that Ralph and Piggy found on the shore of the beach.
When they blew into it, it made a loud sound like a trumpet. This met that a meeting
would be held soon. Also, during the assemblies, you had to be holding it to be
able to speak. This was where Jack got angry, so he formed his own group of boys
with the hunters who were Jacks friends before the plane crash. Many interesting,
and sometimes terrible, things happened between these two groups of boys. I was
often surprised to see how civilized people could treat each other. This is what made the book
so exciting.
Lord of the Flies
was of moderate difficulty, but it was well worth it in the end. I would recommend
this book to anyone who wants to read a challenging novel for a seventh grader.
This book is unpredictable, especially in the ending. I highly recommend it.
Student Book Review:
Lord of the Flies
by: William Golding
Review done by:
Eric Malone
Grade 6
Van Antwerp Middle School
Niskayuna, NY
Lord of the Flies
was a thrilling modern classic. William Golding did a great job expressing the life
of a boy and bunch of other kids stranded on
an island.
It begins Ralph and Piggy (the main characters) wake up from the plane crash and discover
a shell. Piggy recognizes the shell and knows it's a conch. Because Piggy knows
a lot about the conch he knows that if you blow into it it's like a horn. So, Ralph takes Piggy's advice and blew into the conch and making a very horn-like sound.
In a few minutes, dozens of kids came running out of the woods, following the sound
of the conch.
Because Ralph found the conch, the kids voted him to be leader and used the conch
sort of like a microphone. If someone has it, everyone shuts up and he talks. As
leader Ralph figured they needed a fire constantly burning. If a plane flies by,
they will see the fire and save them. It would have been a good plan if it worked. Most
of the little kids got tired of finding wood for the fire, so the fire slowly burnt
out.
Finding food was another problem. Ralph made Jack leader of the hunting party. Jack
and some helpers (Roger and Simon) mostly hunted pigs. When one pig was caught it
was good for about a week.
After a while Jack was getting angry at Ralph. He formed his own party and rebelled
against Ralph. Since he was hunter he wanted to hunt down Ralph. Towards the end
of the book Jack was messed up.
At the end of the book Jack and Roger were hunting Ralph. Jack went crazy. He sent
the whole forest on fire, which was a good idea because a that moment a plane landed
on the island and reStudent Book Review:
Lord of The Flies
by: William Golding
Review done by:
Alex Rock
Grade 7
Van Antwerp Middle School
Niskayuna, NY
The book I read was Lord of The Flies
. The book is about some kids that were on a plane and crashed on an island somewhere
in the middle of the ocean. Two of the kids had ended up in one spot. One of them
was named Ralph, and the other was called Piggy, but no one knew his real name.
All of the kids were all over the island so they had to find a way to all call them together.
Piggy noticed a shell and he said that if Ralph blew into it it will make a loud
sound. He blew into it and it made a loud sound. Eventually he had all the kids
on the island come to where he was. He decided that Piggy should count the kids.
He had trouble counting them because they all were running off and wanting to play.
This was a problem throughout the whole book, and it eventually caused the kids to
break off into two groups. Before that it made many problems. They had meetings
to discuss about what they were going to do. Every time they had a meeting everyone
would fool around. They came up with a lot of ideas about how they could make things
easier. They had agreed to bring fresh water to where they were staying every day,
but eventually stopped doing that. They also agreed to all build shelters, but they
didn't build them very great. One kid named Jack was more interested in hunting than anything
else, and was the one that eventually broke off and started his own group.
I would only suggest this book for more advanced readers because It is a somewhat
hard to understand. For example, in one part it is talking about something Ralph
is doing, and it's easy to tell who it is because the other characters call him by
his name, but then it will go to Jack and you have to figure it out by his personality, because
he is by himself and no one else talks to him. Other than that I think it was a
very good book, because it makes you not just read the book, but think about what's
happening and about what the characters are doing.
scued them.
And that is the end of a great book.
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