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A Bridge To The Stars (2007)

A Bridge to the Stars (2007)

Book Info

Genre
Rating
3.44 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0385734956 (ISBN13: 9780385734950)
Language
English
Publisher
delacorte books for young readers

About book A Bridge To The Stars (2007)

This short novel by Swedish writer Henning Mankell is the first of several books about Joel, a 12 year old growing up in a remote part of Northern Sweden with his father. It is followed by a second book, The Twilight of the Stars and most recently, The Boy Who Slept in the Snow (also known as When the Snow Fell). This book is not very similar to other works by Mankell, except that it is highly sensitive and insightful of character and setting (traits which make even the grisly murders and detective work of the Wallander series so interesting). In A Bridge to the Stars, Joel's father is a moody and difficult character who relies on his 12 year old son to do much of the domestic work in their home as well as go to school and be a normal kid. Joel is fascinated by his father's tales of working as a sailor, though they now live far from the sea and his father works as a lumberjack in the forest. Joel is also trying to deal with the absence of his mother, who he learn is absent not because she is dead, which Joel could understand, but because she couldn't be a mother and wife. Joel learns some important lessons about his father, and how friendship can mislead us to do things we regret. He learns that true friends often come to us from unlikely places. A Bridge to the Stars is a memorable coming of age story set in the remote north woods of Sweden, and is a sensitive study of late childhood from a very talented writer.This was not by any means my favorite of Henning Mankell's works, but it is certainly one I will remember and someday perhaps revisit. Mankell has been made famous for his Kurt Wallander series of police procedurals set in Skane in the south of Sweden. But he has more recently written some wonderful (less-genre) fiction which deals with the realities of life in Sweden and Southern Africa. Secrets in the Fire is a work of remarkable thought and sensitivity, and, like A Bridge to the Stars, told through the eyes of an intriguing young character. (Frequently, these books are classified as Juvenile Fiction but I would say this one would be of equal or greater interest to an adult.) In any event, these books represent a captivating layer in the larger body of work Mankell has created. Mankell's ability to see the world from the perspective of a young character is what makes this such a powerful book, and it should be read by any who aspire to tell stories from the perspective of the adolescent.

...ناکهان مدرسه تمام می شود.و تعطیلات آن قدر به سرعت از را همی رسد که جوئل تا قبل از بیدار شدن و فکر کردن به اینکه دیگر نباید به مدرسه برود، متوجه آن نمی شود. از تخت بیرون می پرد، لباسش را می پوشد و روی دوچرخه اش می پرد و به راه می افتد. تابستان چقدر بلند است. دیگر جوئل سگی را که در راه رسیدن به یک ستاره است نمی بیند. جوئل فکر می کند حتمن آن سگ چنان سریع دویده که تا حالا به ستاره ی خودش رسیده است. به نظرش این یک فکر بچه گانه است ، نه فکر کسی که به زودی دوازده ساله خواهد شد. با این همه ستاره ای را انتخاب می کند که در آن دوردست ها با نور خیره کننده ای می درخشد. سگ جوئل آنجاست. جوئل دیگر نمی تواند رفتار بچه گانه داشته باشد؛ او این را خوب می داند. شاید موقع آن رسیده که آن سگ را فراموش کند.ولی هنوز می تواند موقع دوچرخه سواری بایستد و به آسمان آبی چشم بدوزد و باور کند که آن سسگ به مقصد و هدف خویش رسیده است. جوئل این فکر را می پسندد. هرگز نمی خواهد هیچ کس دیگر در این فکر شریک باشد. این فکر باعث می شود که جوئل فقط جوئل باشد نه هیچ کس دیگر: من، من هستم. من لحظه ای دارم ، و سگی دارم که ستاره ای دارد

Do You like book A Bridge To The Stars (2007)?

I was 85% through this book when I put it down for good. I never stop in the middle of books. This book was simply THAT BAD.I started reading the book in the mistaken belief that it was a Kurt Wallender mystery. In fact, it is one of a series of coming-of-age tales with an 11-year-old boy, Joel, at their center. Joel lives with his dad in the far, cold north of Sweden, eats boiled potatoes every night for dinner, wonders about his absent mom, and wanders the streets at the witching hour as part of a 'secret society' he has invented to embrace his quest after a mysterious dog. That's it. Maybe this is delightful in Swedish, in Sweden, where many readers find that it evokes and brings to life their innocent backgrounds in humble, rural (wintry) surroundings. Maybe it's a translation problem (the prose is so workaday, so uninspired, that its shortcomings could only be made up for by brilliant plotting ... of which there is no trace here). In short, I found it all boring as hell. The Catcher in the Rye, this is not. Not recommended to anyone who is not from Sweden, and recommended to very few Swedes.
—M.J. Fiori

A beautiful story about a young boy Joel whose mother left him and whose father works in woods. Now he is scared that his father will leave him too. He meets a new friend that is sadly not the right for him - Ture - he is trying to scare the other people in town which is something that Joel doesn't want to do. In the end he nearly dies while climibing on a bridge as a part of the pact that they made and he decides to stay away from him. He ends up making two other friends instead - one being an elderly man that was deemed insane and the other being a lady without a nose - he destroys her flowers while he was still with Ture but she ends up forgiving him and they become good friends. At the end of the book his father reassures him that he is staying, they start talking about the mother and he promises his son that they are moving back near the sea after he is done with school.
—Lucario

Some very stirring scenes in this one, though inconsistent. A young boy, unhappy because his mother has left him and his father, falls under the spell of a friend. Together the two flirt with evil . . . our hero drawn in by the spell the other boys casts on him. The climactic scene--our hero climbs a railway trestle because of a dare--is wonderful, but too much of the book is predictable. Unhappy boy meets eccentric adults (noseless woman, crazy man) who show him that life encompasses more than the ordinary and teach him lessons he'd never learn in school. Definitely uneven. Mankell's adult mysteries are much better.
—Carl

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