Now

Product Information

At the end of the second book, poor Felix has just seen his foster mother and friend hung in the town square for what amounts to 'looking at the Nazi officers a bit funny'as far as I could tell.

Now - Penguin Books UK

Once (Brief article, children's review, audiobook review)", AudioFile: 61(1), 2006-08-01, ISSN 1063-0244 Morris began his writing career as a screenwriter, and wrote his first children's novel in 1985. His brilliantly comic style has endeared him to children and adults alike, and he is now one of Australia's most successful authors, both internationally and at home. He was born in England in 1953 and emigrated to Australia in 1969 so he could escape from school and become a Very Famous Writer. Felix is a grandfather. He has achieved much in his life and is widely admired. He has mostly buried the painful memories of his childhood, but they resurface when his granddaughter Zelda comes to stay with him. In books 1 and 2, Once and Then, Gleitzman gave the reader a pretty good look at what life was life under the Nazis, the level of cruelty people can be capable of and the level of kindness, too. But the scars left by the Holocaust on those who survived it must be so unimaginably painful, one wonders how any healing can happen. But healing is what Felix needs to do in Now and so, for that matter, does granddaughter Zelda, who feels she can never to good enough to live up the idealized image of her namesake. So obviously we find out that Felix survived the war and we also find out how he managed to survivedHe also wrote live stage material for people such as Rolf Harris, Pamela Stephenson and the Governor General of Australia. Morris is well known to many people through his semi-autobiographical columns in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald magazine, Good Weekend, which he wrote for nine years. Due to the fact that Zelda and Felix are young, the readers are going to form protective feelings between these two characters and in the process making the novel enjoyable and quite special. Author Morris Gleitzman writing style contributes mainly to the fact that the narrative is mainly told from a child’s point of view. Gleitzman’s story-telling tone and his childlike vocabularies mainly represent that of a child, which in turn makes the narrative extremely realistic. By making use of choppy sentences and simple vocabularies, author Gleitzman can fully reflect on the childish dialogue. Gleitzman also maintains Felix and Zelda’s innocence, irrespective of their encounters with all type of evils, which happens to be the most prominent traits in children. In the process, the narrative comes to life. Once Felix managed to escape from the orphanage to locate his mother at the father. Felix at one time saved a young girl from a burning house. When we meet her, Zelda is staying with her grandfather while her doctor parents are overseas on a mission. She is struggling to fit in the small country town, and struggling even more with the weight of her name. She has heard stories about Zelda, her grandfather’s brave friend who died during the war… she has always felt like she will never live up to her grandfather’s memory of the dead girl, or be as heroic as young Zelda was. Morris Gleitzman’s ‘Once’ trilogy began in 2005, and was followed by ‘Then’ and ‘Now’. In 2012 the trilogy will be expanding, with one more book called ‘After’.

Now by Morris Gleitzman | Goodreads Now by Morris Gleitzman | Goodreads

Ventura, Emily (2010-04-01), " Once (Children's review, book review)", Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54 (7): 546(2), ISSN 1081-3004 I shouldn’t have said brilliant. It’s true, Felix is brilliant, but it sounds like boasting. I should have said quite good or average. And there is a lot of violence in this book - don't be fooled that just because the war is over, this is going to be any less a harrowing story. One event in particular happens concerning a woman, so teachers/parents out there may want to read this book so they can have conversations with children afterwards about what happened. I don't think that means children shouldn't read this book - and I'm not advising that "gatekeepers" keep it away from kids, not at all - it absolutely has place in the story because it is speaking to a very true history of war (past and present, sadly).Along the way he finds Zelda, a young girl who Felix discovers lying beside her dead parents in the midst of a burnt-down farmhouse. Together they escape Nazis, hide in a dentist’s basement and form a bond of friendship in the midst of war. Well, I say trilogy very tongue in cheek. I thought Once, Then and Now would be a trilogy, but maybe , maybe not. Time will tell.