Independent Reading Response #8

Oliver Twist

Response #8: Pg 54 - 109

Response Type: Reaction and Evaluation

“Oliver Twist” is the book that I am reading and it written by Kathleen Olmstead, retold from the Charles Dickens, and illustrated by Dan Andreasen. The main character, Oliver is a young orphan boy who escaped from the house which he belongs in. The place where he goes after his escaping is London, the place where he thinks he can success his life in the future. Now, he arrives at London and finds a boy named Dodger who is very kind at Oliver and allows him to stay in his house. However, this house has a secret thing that Oliver still doesn’t know. I don’t finish reading this book yet, and I like this book so far, because of this main character and the conflict that the main character faces to.

First of all, I like the main character, Oliver. The author describes him as a pureness which people usually don’t have such characteristics. In the chapter 2, when Dick who is his first friend in the orphan house has hard disease and need some food, Oliver gives his little food and said “You’ll be better with more food.” This sentence shows me how kind Oliver is because I knew already that Oliver also doesn’t have enough food to eat. He sacrifices himself and gives the food to his first friend. Also in another chapter, he doesn’t know what he is doing even though it is illegal thing because he is too innocent He doesn’t know anything about the world and society. However, as the story goes, he learns the moral and he might distinguish what is good and bad. I like his personality because he is too pure. What I mean by this is that he doesn’t have any feeling of hate and grudge. I think he also doesn’t even know how to feel so, therefore I like him. I want to recommend to young children to read this book and they can learn how to be a good person in the future.

Secondly, I like the conflict that the main character faces. The first conflict that Oliver faces is that he stays in Mr. Bumble’s house since he is an infant. Everyday, he has problem with the food, and relationship between other orphans and him. However, after he escapes, he had fewer problems with the others, but he faces on the problem which he starts to live in the house where the thief lives but Oliver is too innocent, so he believes everyone in that house. I predict that he will have the conflict between the thief and Oliver because Oliver will say to the people that stealing the people’s stuff are not good, so he might persuade everyone to stop stealing. Therefore, I like the conflict between Oliver and other people.

I read more than half pages so far and I really like this book. This character shows the pureness of child and gives the conflict between many people, so that the character can solve it with the pureness. I want to recommend everyone to read especially young children because this is easy to understand and also this has pictures. Also each chapter has few pages, so when I want to stop reading, I can stop after I read one chapter. Therefore, I like this novel and I want to keep reading this until the end.