The FiFi Report 185

Mister Pip…by Lloyd Jones
This is a lovely book. ‘On an island called Bougainville in the early 1990s, civil war rages. Rebels have taken up arms, and soldiers helicopter in from nearby Port Moresby to reestablish New Guinea’s sovereignty over the island. All the whites have fled except one: Mr. Watts, a New Zealander married to a local woman. He offers to replace the departed teacher and reopen the village school; on the second day of class, he begins to read ‘Great Expectations’ by Dicken aloud. Suddenly, the village’s children have a refuge from the incomprehensible conflict engulfing their world. “We could escape to another place,” declares Matilda, the 13-year-old narrator. New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones’s spare, haunting fable explores the power and limitations of art as Matilda chronicles 21 increasingly desperate months’ - It’s a great read!
$13 www.amazon.com Publisher: The Dial Press (July 31, 2007)