Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo.Private Peaceful, a touching story about love, friendship, family, war and injustice. Private Peaceful is a story that shows the power of words. It’s a story that shows the power of promises. Private Peaceful is a children’s story that reaches the heart and plays with it like a toy car. Thomas Peaceful is reliving and retelling his life. He is telling it as of the point where something terrible is happening in his life. Thomas’s best friend and brother, Charlie, has been inhumanly sentenced to be killed by the firing squad while fight in the war. Charlie disobeyed orders for the pure reason of sibling love, and suicide. The order was pure suicide. Charlie stayed by his brother’s injured side instead of follow the Sergeants orders. It was seen as cowardice. Charlie got shot.Thomas is the narrator. He is telling us his story. His story of love, friendship, family, war and injustice. Thomas is telling his lived in a country village during World War 1. He is grieved by his father’s death. Thomas in his heart takes full responsibility for his death, making it his deepest darkest secret. He loved his dad, so did his brothers Charlie and Big Joe. Big Joe is Thomas’s oldest brother. He is mentally challenged. His mother also loved his father very much. Everyone did but his Great Aunt Grandma Wolf.Then a girl named Molly comes into Thomas’s life. She is the same age as his old brother, Charlie. Charlie and Thomas both have a crush on her. They end up very sore at each other. Charlie ends up getting Molly pregnant, and marrying her. This hurt Thomas and his friendship with Charlie more that you could imagine. There was only one thing could bring them back together, war. This book was a really fantastic read. It moved me. It contained such emotion that swept me off my feet. You feel every moment in this book. It is believable, the characters are believable. It has a smart shift between past and present with the narrator. It also portrays there growing up very well, you can tell in the language and thought patterns that each character was constantly evolving. There were moments in this book that really touched the heart. Such a subtle bond between brothers is just so strong that you can feel it. You feel the emotions of each character through-out the novel. Little moments in the book just melted the heart with the pure beauty of the scene being sculptured into the minds of the readers. It shows the power of basic human emotions and morals. It usuals the magical bond of blood to truly show you how strong a connection between two people can be. The book has constant twists and turns, never staying boring. It brings characters into the plot as quickly as some jump out. It moulds solid emotional attachment with the main character, Thomas, and those around him. It shows his emotion he has for everyone that comes into his life.Private Peaceful is a fantastic novel for all those wanting to smile, frown, laugh, cry and all that is in between. It is a really nice easy read which just flows like an ocean.Highly recommended.
Priavate Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo, is rich in history and leaves the reader pondering the next sequence of events. In World War One the Peaceful's are struggling to keep a house on the Colonel's property with the recent death of their father. A strong possible option is war.Morpurgo develops both the main character, Thomas, also known as Tommo, and sub characters like real people. The characters are engaging with their human strengths and weaknesses. The characters are developed directly; mostly through Tommo and Charlie's conversations and interactions. Charlie, Tommo's older brother, helps reveal an implied theme; one's courage doesn't necessarily help in a time of war. With the choice of enlisting for the war in the minds of the brothers, courage is racing through their blood. The brothers choose combat, and on the battle field Charlie more than ever is courageous and bold towards his Sergeant. However, will his courage help or hurt in the long run in the bitter time of war?Michael Morpurgo's purpose of Private Peaceful, was to engross the reader in a book while teaching one about life and choices families dealt with in World War One. Morpurgo's purpose was only partly achieved. The story was at points boring and seemed unrelated to what the book was about. The first quarter of the story had nothing to do with war and the word was only mentioned once or twice leaving one wondering if war was ever going to occur. Although Morpurgo failed to captivate the reader, he did succeed in incorporating facts about World War One. The setting helped Morpurgo, from the battlefield, to no man's land, the home front and trenches, all helped him achieve the task of intertwining the history of World War One. The plot was yet another element that achieved the history aspect of Morpurgo's purpose. The inciting incident of the possible enlistment of soldiers and Charlie and Tommo's acceptance leaves one to wonder what will happen to the brothers on the break of war. After the choice is made Morpurgo has set himself up to fire out facts. As Morpurgo sets himself to beyond achieve his purpose in incorporating facts, he leaves some readers uninterested, but somehow grabs their attention again with the rising action and climax. Morgpurgo does a fantastic job with his skills of incorporation, but he loses his readers in the beginning, with what seems like an on going sequence of pointless events.
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Thomas Peaceful is a boy in Great Britain, a country both touched and tainted by World War One. As the early days of peace and security pass by Thomas and his brothers, the war looms ever closer to their (mostly) sleepy village. One day the tenuous thread from which Thomas's life hangs from snaps abruptly. He and his brother Charlie are sent away to war on the whims of the wealthy man who rules the town. As they battle the trials and tribulations of the war zone together, they become bonded in a way that cannot be achieved by menial tasks. This bond never lasts in an area so stricken with war.Do not let the historic element in this book fool you; the book has an underlying plot line that will leave you intrigued. Well-written and satisfying, "Private Peaceful" also carries a facet of pure brotherly love that is not normally found in war stories. However, with a bland exposition that could have been more gripping, "Private Peaceful" is not a true master's work. The novel also seems to follow in the footsteps of other war tales before it. For example, it has a striking resemblance to "My Brother Sam is Dead". This book does not stand out of the crowd, and if compared to other books such as "Cracker", it would be forgotten. While satisfactory, this book is one of the more mediocre war novels.
—Jillian Zick
Thomas (Tommo) Peaceful has always lived within the footsteps of his older brother, Charlie Peaceful. The two brothers do everything together, and whenever something happens to Tommo, Charlie is always right there to protect him. But the one thing Charlie can't protect him from is the guilt he feels for his father's death, which was an accident when a tree fell on him; but he can try to help him through it. On his first day on school, Thomas meets his soon to be, love of his life, Molly. Coincidentally, Charlie falls in love with her too. The three do everything together after that, and everything seems perfect, until Molly falls in love with Charlie. Molly's parents forbade her from seeing the Peacefuls, but Charlie and Molly continue meeting in secret, and sending letters. Molly is soon kicked out of their house, since she has become pregnant; with Charlie's baby. The Colonel, their employer and owner of their house, forces Charlie to go to war, and Tommo follows, like always. Will they both be strong enough to survive the war?I thoroughly enjoyed reading Michael Morpugo's 'Private Peaceful.' It was an engaging, historically accurate book, with a riveting plot. It wholly narrates the emotions and thoughts of all sides during the war. Although this book is set in the past, the reader is able to relate some of the characters' experiences to their own today. 'Private Peaceful' also illustrates the costs and gains of war, and the physical and emotional pain dealt with as a result of the war. Morpugo is a savvy author, and 'Private Peaceful' is definitely a worthwhile read for anyone that enjoys a good story, but also can appreciate some of the historical references woven in.
—Grace
Charlie, an eighteen year old boy was living a good life, is struck in the face of war, specifically World War I, and is forced to go. The real question is should his younger brother, Tommo, go with him. Tommo and Charlie lived a happy life in England, in a simple little town where no big problems really occur. With the brink of war at hand however, the army is recruiting any boy of age to fight, which Charlie was. Tommo, however, was not. Tommo is sixteen years old at the time, and the military cutoff is seventeen years of age. He still decides to go, because he wanted to be with his brother when times were hard. In war, the two brothers spent several hardships together, spending weeks in the miserable conditions that came with the use of trench warfare. Several of their friends died right in front of their eyes, and witnessed both enemies and allies shot down and killed. They both made sure the two of them would stick together to the very end.Private Peaceful gives a perfect description of a regular boy who goes through all of the perils of war. The book is filled to the brim with death, struggle, torture, and heart-wrenching tragedies. The characters are really well developed, where you could tell what was going through each character's mind at any moment, and understand who they were as a person. The problems soldiers had fighting in the war with the new weapons and methods of fighting that were even more deadly than ever before in war were perfectly described. The boys never knew what would happen the next day, and when they may get shot, and wouldn’t be able to see the next time the sun rises. When I picked the book up at first, I couldn’t put it down, and I don’t particularly find war books as my cup of tea. I couldn’t believe how well-written the book was and how into reading the book I was. Private Peaceful is a great book for teenagers my age, whether you are a war freak or not.
—Derek Bruce
