Youtube videos can be viewed by teachers.
Morris Gleitzman talking about Soon (YouTube 4:01)
Morris Gleitzman talking about Soon (YouTube 4:01)
More about the history of the time
Morris Gleeitzman never tells us the name of the city where Felix is living with Gabreik, but one city about which a lot of information is available is the capital city of Poland, Warsaw.Almost 85% of the buildings were destroyed by the end of 1944. View the UNESCO video and gallery which shows the reconstruction of Warsaw. VIDEOS: how postwar Warsaw was rebuilt using 18th century paintings Felix's Optimism In this dangerous world after the war, most people just try to survive and keep out of trouble but Felix keeps trying to help people, and dreams of becoming a doctor. He has learnt some surgical skills from a doctor he assisted for six moths when he lived with the partisans. Read the following pages to see how he helped people who have been injured: 8-10, 17-19, 21-23. |
Soon by Morris Gleitzman published by Viking
Some students may find the novel disturbing. "Felix is 13 and is still in hiding with the drunken Gabriek in the rubble and ruins of a destroyed city in Poland. While the war is over, it is no longer the Nazis who are the enemy but the Polish patriots determined to rid their country of anyone, man, woman or child, who is not of pure Polish extraction. As the Soviet Red Army prepares to dominate and control the proud Polish people, Gogol and his ilk are determined that it will not happen. ‘Poland has been crawling with vermin for centuries. Germans, Austrians, Jews, Ukrainians, Russians. Now we’re cleaning them up.” Felix has a much simpler ambition – “Soon I hoped the Nazis would be defeated. And they were. I hoped the war would be over. And it was. I hoped we would be safe. But we aren’t.” Eking the most meagre survival from Gabriek’s ability to mend things, Felix is determined not to lose his humanity using his most rudimentary medical skills to help those in need while trying to avoid the partisans and the gangs and all the others whose only motive and purpose is survival. Finding himself with a tiny baby to look after and unable to get help from the Allied teams trying to deal with millions of desperate and displaced people, he agrees to join Anya’s gang in exchange for food and warmth for the infant and finds himself in a whole new world of grown-up behaviour that no child should. In this series, Gleitzman has tackled the most confronting of issues in the world’s recent history and despite the prejudice, the persecution, the racism, the horror, the violence and the death that was the reality of the times it is essential that older children know these stories for they are the stories of their grandparents and their great-grandparents and are at the root of today’s multicultural Australia. Yet Gleitzman writes in a masterful way that not only exposes the truth, affects the reader and enables them to understand but still allows them to be engrossed in the story. The fate of Felix drives them to turn the page. Every event, and there are some that parents and teachers need to know may be quite disturbing, has its place and its purpose not only in the telling of Felix’s story but also in the understanding of the world today as we continue to see conflict across the world, refugees fleeing and perhaps even being in our own classrooms. However, it is not all gloom and doom as throughout each of the books, Felix maintains his humanity, his humour and his hope. He transforms from that young naïve little boy seeing a carrot in his soup as a sign to a compassionate, caring young man, older and wiser than his years as he begins to understand the causes and consequences of war. Ceasefires and victories are just the beginning… Whether this is the final in this compelling series remains to be seen. Perhaps there is room for another episode entitled Perhaps…" From Barbara Braxton Teacher/Librarian http://thebottomshelf.edublogs.org/2015/09/15/soon/ Teachers may read pages 1 to 15 to get an idea of what life was like foe Felix. Morris Gleitzman ScholasticTeacher's Notes Once read by Morris Gleitzman prt 1 (a good way to introduce the main character) YouTube 10:02 Once booktrailer YouTube 2:02 |