The third book in the series, this one is set in modern Australia and Felix is now an old man turning 80. Zelda is his grandaughter named after his childhood friend. This time Felix has to survive a bushfire. ‘Now’ is every bit as gripping as ‘Once’ and ‘Then’ were, yet I felt the ending was more positive and hopeful than ‘Then’, which I found very sad. It traces Felix’s survival and story through the eyes of his grandaughter.
I love the way Gleitzman uses the perception of a child in these books and shows the thinking processes from Zelda’s point of view. It is similar to the other two books in this way. He is a great writer. I had to wipe the tears away again with this book. The whole bushfires setting is quite close still, after all.
I noticed in the news yesterday the CBCA have been announced and I feel very shabby in that I haven’t read any of the shortlisted books this year. I think being at the senior campus and not participating with the students in the Premiers Reading Challenge, has taken me away from the habit of reading so much as I once did.
This book was recommended to me in one of my students wide reading oral presentations last Friday. I still insist my year 10s only read novels for homework and they have to either write a blog post on our class blog or make a presentation to the class. Friday’s presentations were especially sweet for me as one students commented that reading a certain author had influenced his writing style. They are the kinds of unprompted comments that I love to hear from my students.
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