SuitabookBurning mountain
L. J. Adlington
- Reading
- Because the narrative moves among several eras and characters, pause at transitions and keep track of whose experience is being followed; this may help the stories’ connections emerge.
- Themes
- Civilian survival in wartime: Vittoria steals to keep a group of children alive amid wartime hardship in Naples. The plot places survival and theft together, but does not establish a wider judgement about either.
- Soldiers and their duties: The book addresses soldiers and their duties; the detail of how it is developed remains unclear. The story presents a young person in military service and competing human circumstances, but their overall treatment is unclear.
- Family uncertainty and wartime memory: Denise and Craig wait for news of their brother serving in Afghanistan while elderly neighbours share wartime memories and struggle with ill health and dementia. The present-day thread links waiting, family experience and neighbours’ recollections; the outline does not explain how these elements resolve.
- Worth knowing
- Consider whether your reader is ready for depictions of war, an Allied bombardment, a volcanic eruption, civilian hardship and children stealing to keep other children alive.