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My book-report

Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:04 pm
by HazimQ
Hey guys,

Could someone read my book report and tell me any changes that need to be made? I speak fluent English, but I don't write essays or reports very well. I'm in 10th grade, so it's a highschool essay if it makes a difference.
Hazim
10/20/2010
English
Book Report – The Sleepwalker

Can you identify the amount of racism and abuse that goes around the world every day? Fahim, one of the significant characters in The Sleepwalker has undergone both racism attacks and physical abuse every single day of his life, and has nobody to turn to. The Sleepwalker was written by a British author named Robert Muchamore and was published in 2008. The book is a non-fiction thriller and somewhat mystery book and is 312 pages. It was published by Hodder Children’s Books.

The book focuses around a campus of highly trained teenagers aged around 14-19 who are mentally and physically strong. This campus of students are summoned to solve the most important recent occurrences, in this book’s case, a major plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean. The book displays and shows the modern-day racism towards mainly Arabs, however also does exaggerate the stereotype that Arabs are overly-violent. The Sleepwalker begins by informing us that the crash occurs, and when the campus is given the task to solve it, it is revealed that two of the passengers on board were the wife and son of the dean of the campus. This makes us feel even closer and sympathize more with the dean of the campus. Fahim is the son of Hassan, and after he hears Hassan and his wife arguing about the plane, he sees Hassan beat his wife after she says that “it can’t be covered up”. As a result of this, Fahim calls a tip-line for the plane crash, but he gets cold feet and hangs up after mumbling “The crash, my father…” The dean of the campus was alerted of this after the police sent him that recording as they had that in the “suspicious pile of recordings”. The dean, Mac, insists that his campus go to investigate what is really happening.

Fahim is the son of Hassan, and after he hears Hassan and his wife arguing about the plane, he sees Hassan beat his wife after she says that “it can’t be covered up”. As a result of this, Fahim calls a tip-line for the plane crash, but he gets cold feet and hangs up after mumbling “The crash, my father…” The dean of the campus was alerted of this after the police sent him that recording as they had that in the “suspicious pile of recordings”. The dean, Mac, insists that his campus go to investigate what is really happening. It is revealed that Fahim has lived a rough life, as his father continues to beat his mother senselessly, and that Fahim undergoes racism and hatred every single day he goes to school. Fahim has extreme emotional and mental problems as a result of his harsh life conditions.

After the campus sends out two of their agents, Jake and Lauren, they decide to approach the situation by slowly making friends with the boy, and then pressuring him to fess up about what he knows. We are then informed that Hassan actually resents his son because since they’ve moved to America, he’s adopted a luxurious and western lifestyle. He continues to threaten Fahim about what will happen when they move back to Dubai. Fahim helps out Jake and Lauren and it is exposed that Hassan and his brother Asif actually run a fraud business where they steal old airplane parts, and sell it to companies as a new part. They are profiting a significant amount from this, and all is going well until the crash happens. Their business plummets down the drain, and Hassan and Asif decide to try to skip out of town with their earnings. After a short chase, Hassan and Asif are forced to be killed because they refused to comply.


In my opinion, this book was a satisfactory read. It’s very interesting to see the outlook of the Arabs from the western world. At a point in the book, it was said by a reporter if “Al-Qaeda sponsored this attack” and what that would mean for the country. It’s clearly conveyed at multiple instances that the general current outlook of the Arab world is that they are ruthless, soulless people. In the book, there is multiple instances of extreme violence and profanity from Hassan when he abuses his maid because he believes she turned him into the authorities. “What’s going on?” “Bitch isn’t talking,” was one of the most significant quotes of the book. I would recommend this book to any reader who would like to see what westerners think and feel about the general Arab world, or to just read a mystery book in general. However, it’s notable that you cannot read this book and not notice the continuous amount bias towards Arabs and their attitudes.
Thanks!

Re: My book review

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 4:14 am
by Joe
First things first, unless I'm way behind the times, this would normally be called a "book review", not a "book report".