Now

Product Information

Felix has gripped my heart once again in this whirlwind of a book. I’ve honestly missed Felix, and was so happy when I found out two more books had been made! I was hoping to find out how our hero became a doctor but there are only indicators: "When you are educating yourself to be a doctor, you need all the practice you can get." "Around here, medical books are scarcer than walls." "My body is a library too." "I know usually a doctor should wait until a patient asks for treatment, it's called medical ethics." Morris Gleitzman has a rare gift for writing very funny stories and an even rarer gift of wrapping very serious stories inside them' - Guardian The story is about a little Jewish boy called Felix looking for his Mum and Dad after the start of WWII, they have left him in an orphanage in Poland as they could see what was about to happen. He runs away to find them as he does not understand what is happening around him. His adventures are traumatic and tragic. After the Nazis took my parents I was scared. After they killed my best friend I was angry. After I joined the partisans and helped defeat the Nazis I was hopeful. Soon, I said, we'll be safe. I was wrong.

Morris Gleitzman Morris Gleitzman

It's a collection of short stories I've been working on for the last year or so - as a kind of refresher course for the imagination after the long and exhausting (but I'm not complaining) process of writing a novel. I've read each of Felix's 'Once' stories with increasing admiration, and was thrilled to see a new episode, set in an era that is rarely, if ever covered in children's books - post-war Europe. There is a wealth of WWII fiction, but the dark period just after is, in my mind, not somewhere authors visit. Overall, I loved this book, I recommend this to anyone who loves an emotional book filled with action and adventure. In this book Felix has to look after a little baby, when the mother hands the baby to him shortly before she is killed. I adore Felix, he is such a sweet soul even when the world around him is full of evil and horrible people. Even after all he's been through he is still so kind and caring.If you've read Once and Then, you'll know that Felix also has some experience of bullies. The people that bullied Felix were six million times more deadly than the bullies who are being mean to Zelda, but Zelda's bullies still sound pretty awful.

Now - Penguin Books UK

Felix has been living in an orphanage for three years and eight months when the men in armbands arrive to burn the books. Now I understand why Felix does the things he does. At least he’s got me. My name is Zelda too. This is our story.’ Now is the third book in this series. (Once is the first, Then is the second) Each book has a one word title, and each chapter in the book begins with that word. In Now, Felix is 80 years old, living in Australia, taking care of his granddaughter....Zelda. Her parents named her after his friend from the earlier books. I don't want to give too much about this book as it does sorta build on the first two books. It's interesting to see a grown Felix, still struggling with his past and what he lived through. He is sad, often distant, and just still remembers everything from his past so vividly and lives with grief and anger each day. Now also weaves in another part of history - a large, devastating, brush fire in Australia. Merging all this together with so much more, bullying, love, grief, a precocious little child, family and more. I hold onto the padded post bag as tightly as I can. I might not be the biggest or toughest person in the world, but when I’m defending a precious birthday present I can be very determined.Morris wrote a number of feature film and telemovie screenplays, including The Other Facts of Life and Second Childhood, both produced by The Australian Children's Television Foundation. The Other Facts of Life won an AWGIE Award for the Best Original Children's Film Script. As an older reader you experience the horrors of war creeping into Felix’s reality slowly, bit by bit and with a gut-churning inevitability that you wish you could stop… It’s utterly horrendous. But the Holocaust is something that should always be remembered and taught to younger generations, and Gleitzman’s ‘Once’ series is incredibly accessible for young readers (10+), while never once refraining from the impacts of death or the gravitas of war and genocide. Going on the run in search of his parents, Felix soon learns that Poland in 1942 is not a safe place for Jewish boys. But can his gift for storytelling keep him one step ahead of the Nazis and help him find his parents? Australia has many children’s authors to be proud of, and Morris Gleitzman is one of my favourites. Again he has woven a story that sensitively and realistically portrays the struggles and traumas that children face. This story like many of his previous, will introduce you to characters who will become friends with whom you will laugh and cry. All three books in this series bear the same dedication, “For all the children who have never had the chance to do their best”. May these books inspire us all to do our best! There are some wonderful characters here, some that remind me of Zelda, some you really really hope have a happy ending.