Tommorow When the War began is an intriguing book that delves deeply into the main themes of friendship and sticking together, instead of being selfish. Written by John Marsden, and described as one of the biggest Australian Classics in the book industry, and with new movies coming out about this book, today, for everyone who has not experienced reading this book, I will give a brief review about this book, tell my favourite moments, what I like about the author when writing this book, and a rating at the very end.
Tommorow When The War began is a fictional book that is based off being in war. Ellie is the main charecter in this book – and is a typical Australian 16 year old in the outback. She goes to a rural school, helps her parents, and knows everyone in town. But, one thing that she likes the best is going bush – or exploring the outback that is her backyard. So, during the school holidays, she invites 6 of her closest friends – Lee, Kevin, Corrie, Homer, Fiona, and Robyn to go to a place called Hell. Hell is a deserted place outside of their town with rocky mountains, which Ellie has been many times. After a lot of nagging, and the final consent from their parents, Ellie and her friends back their bags and start their hike to the moountain. It seems like an ordinary trip – Ellie and her friends hike up to the mountain, and enjoy their time at Hell. However, a couple of days before they come back, Ellie sees a couple of planes flying over their heads, towerds their city, looking like fighter jets. However, Ellie does not think about anything – until a few days later when they come back to their home. Everything is deserted.
(Above) Scene when actors find their town deserted.
The phone lines are not working, nobody is responding, and some of the houses doors are left open – definately a mystery for anyone who would be in this situation. Working together, using their wit, and skills, these friends have to find where all their village is, what is happening, and how they can return their village back to normal. Without getting caught.
My favourite moment in this book is when Homer takes in charge of the group. Before this adventure, Homer is posed as a boy that is always in trouble. However, when the group needs him the most to step up, he does. Instead of messing around, like his less mature-self would’ve done, he takes charge in the group. He starts gathering roles to everyone, to make sure that everyone could contribute in a meaningful way to investagate what is happening. This is my favourite moment becuase it shows that a charecter can change, and can step up when the other charecter needs them the most.
Throughout this book, John Marsden has used various types of techniques to help make this book more enjoyable to read. He has used personficiation and imagery in a variety of areas – to further expand the readers understanding of this book. He also has made the Charecters personalities very clear – for example representing Homer as a boisterous, troublemaking boy, by showing his past events, or showing one of Ellie’s friends as a leader throughout the book. Additionally, Marsden has made the storyline of the book very exciting, and suitable for lots of people with unique interests to read. It is a mix of war, mystery, adventure, and friendship all together in one. Finally, what I like about John Marsden is that he signifies that it takes everyone working together to achieve the bigger goal – there is no one thing as a star person that magically lifts everyone to glory.
Overall, I would rate this book a solid 7.6/10. This book is very interesting, and describes everything in detail, showing instead of telling. However, in some parts of the book, it can get monotonous, such as the part where they tell what they do to fend of the soliders. Also, this is the first book of many series, so in order to understand the full story, people should be committed to read the full book. I would recommend this book for people over the age of 13 years old. Happy reading!