I re-read Bernard’s Watch by Andrew Norriss yesterday. I had forgotten how good it is. This is the book on which the Bernard’s Watch TV series was based. Bernard is a young boy who is given a watch that stops time and the book is not only about the fun that can be had, but also about how something like the watch can change your life. If you use the watch for stealing as Mrs Donaldson does it is not necessarily good for you, but if you use it to help others and to give yourself time to think and learn, then the results can be life enhancing. Mrs Donaldson gets arrested but Bernard becomes happier and grows in confidence.
In Ctrl-Z Alex is given a laptop that takes him back in time when he presses Ctrl-Z and so when a mistake (or an awful mess ) is made, he can go back to have another try. In Aquila, the spacecraft that the boys find is very exciting to fly around in but also leads to the boys wanting to learn allsorts of things, including Latin, and their lives improve hugely at home and at school as a result.
There are no victims in Andrew Norriss’s books. When choices are made, you live with the consequences, and if they are not what you want you choose again.
Andrew Norriss is a clever writer too in that he can not only write a good fun adventure story but also can explore the big issues of life like, death and divorce, with a light touch. And so I laugh out loud at the comedy moments, snuffle quietly at a child’s acceptance of divorcing parents or the moving death scene, and at the end I close the book with a sigh of satisfaction, tinged with regret that it has come to an end so soon. They simply are best – and my favourite is the one I haven’t mentioned, The Touchstone, and it would make such a good movie. But Hugh Grant is a bit too old to play Gedrus now and he would have been perfect…
Don’t just take my word for it. Read chapter 1 of Ctrl-Z and read comments from children and teachers here: http://anorrissbooks.wordpress.com/aquila-activity-sheets/
