Skip to main content

Book Review: The Ice Boy by Patricia Elliott

Edward and his elder brother Matt return Uffenham after a year to spend summer vacation with their uncle, Hodder. Uffenham is a coastal area, a year ago their father went for sailing on a stormy day, he didn’t return but his boat was found. For the world he is dead but not for Edward. He believes his father is alive and alone on some remote island. So he wishes to find him, others scrape his idea.


One evening Edward meets a mysterious old man who scribbles a message on a piece of paper for his son. The old man wants Edward to relay the message to his son. However, Edward doesn’t know who his son is and where to find him. That same evening Edward also finds Mistletoe stone - sparklingly green pointed from front.

After some days he finds a man being washed ashore. Edward takes him to a nearby hut and offers him his father’s canvas shoes and clothes and then takes him to Newnes sisters up the alley. Since Newnes sisters have magical powers, he gets to know about that the man’s name is Burr. And around the same time Edward begins to have hallucination about a snow island and sees a human shadow there, which he assumes of his father’s and plans to go there to rescue him.

Newnes sisters confirm that Bur is the son of that old man and a villain called Locke is after him. Now Edward lives in two worlds and it becomes quite obvious to him that Burr has come from a different world and he needs to go back. Locke hides and damages Burr’s magical boat, Ringhorn, and without it Burr can’t go back to his world – which is an island.

When Edward finds Ringhorn, it is not in sailable state, its tiller needs repairing and it can be done only by the Ash Tree’s branches. As further advised by Newnes Sisters, Edward goes into the sea tower and manages to get a branch of Ash tree; it is also a sort of magical tree.

As per the bargain, Burr has to take Edward with him so that he can look out for his father on the island. Burr refuses but Edward is stubborn. So instead of Ringhorn, they start their journey on a different boat. Upon reaching the island, Burr cautions him no to go out of the boat but he does just opposite. Next in a very cold hall Edward is confronted by Locke, who also belongs to the same world as Burr. Locke asks Edward not to help Burr with his magical boat but when he denies Locke begins turning Edward into an icy statue. Here Edward is saved by Matt, who is doing this entire heroic act in his dream but he was sent by Burr as he himself wasn’t able to come.

Edward struggles hard to save Burr from the hands of Locke and his three children but he couldn’t. Just as Burr was dying he let the message of the paper to be read by a Norwegian girl, but it comes a bit late, Burr is already dead. The message on the paper was: Rebirth. For every ending there is a new beginning. Burr died in his world but take new birth in some other world.  
Labels:
Location: New Delhi, India

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 21, 2019 at 7:41 AM

    Thank you so much for this book review

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should
67 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversation fo
63 comments
Read more

Poem Summary: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias is a short poem of fourteen lines written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The concurrent theme of the poem is that nothing remains intact and same forever in this world. Even the brightest of metal, one day decays with passage of time. The throne name of Egyptian King Ramesses is Ozymandias. It was his dearest desire to preserve himself forever by building a huge statue that he thought would never tumble down. Stanza 1: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; Summary: The poet narrates the poem through the eyes of a traveler who seems to have come back from a remote and far-away land, referring to Egypt. The traveler r
23 comments
Read more