year 1 book review lesson

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Book review KS1 – Free printable template resource

Three-page PDF

This free downloadable book review template enables KS1 pupils to offer opinions based on first-hand experiences. Naturally, you shouldn’t expect pupils to review every book they read. However, encouraging them to reflect on their reading from time to time is a useful activity.

Book reviews provide valuable practice at using the subordinating conjunction ‘because’. This makes them particularly useful teaching tools for meeting the writing requirements of KS1.

Book review KS1 template

This download contains three separate book review templates. Each one requires the pupil to write the book’s title and author at the top.

• Use the provided words to write a sentence about the book
• Draw something from the book you liked
• What is the book about?
• Which bits did you like best?
• Give the book a star rating

Sheet three

• What were your favourite parts? Explain why
• Explain why other people should read this book

Rachel Clarke is the director of  Primary English Education Consultancy Limited . This activity is one of a selection of templates created by Rachel for her templates resource pack . Browse more book review templates and World Book Day ideas for schools.

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Book Review Writing

Introduction.

If you love to read, at some point you will want to share a book you love with others. You may already do this by talking about books with friends. If you want to share your ideas with more people than your circle of friends, the way you do that is by writing a review. By publishing the reviews you write, you can share your ideas about books with other readers around the world.

It's natural for young readers to confuse book reviews with book reports, yet writing a book review is a very different process from writing a book report. Book reports focus on the plot of the book. Frequently, the purpose of book reports is to demonstrate that the books were read, and they are often done for an assignment.

A book review is a totally different task. A book review's purpose is to help people decide whether or not the book would interest them enough to read it. Reviews are a sneak peek at a book, not a summary. Like wonderful smells wafting from a kitchen, book reviews lure readers to want to taste the book themselves.

This guide is designed to help you become a strong book reviewer, a reader who can read a book and then cook up a review designed to whet the reading appetites of other book lovers.

Form: What should the review look like?

How long should it be.

The first question we usually ask when writing something is "How long should it be?" The best answer is "As long as it takes," but that's a frustrating answer. A general guideline is that the longer the book, the longer the review, and a review shouldn't be fewer than 100 words or so. For a long book, the review may be 500 words or even more.

If a review is too short, the review may not be able to fulfill its purpose. Too long, and the review may stray into too much plot summary or lose the reader's interest.

The best guide is to focus less on how long to write and more on fulfilling the purpose of the review.

How Do You Create A Title?

The title of the review should convey your overall impression and not be overly general. Strong titles include these examples:

• "Full of action and complex characters"
• "A nail-biter that will keep you up all night"
• "Beautiful illustrations with a story to match"
• "Perfect for animal lovers"

Weak titles may look like this:

• "Really good book"
• "Three stars"
• "Pretty good"
• "Quick read"

How Should It Begin?

Although many reviews begin with a short summary of the book (This book is about…), there are other options as well, so feel free to vary the way you begin your reviews.

In an introductory summary, be careful not to tell too much. If you retell the entire story, the reader won't feel the need to read it him/herself, and no one appreciates a spoiler (telling the end). Here are some examples of summaries reviewers from The New York Times have written:

"A new picture book tells a magically simple tale of a lonely boy, a stranded whale and a dad who rises to the occasion."

"In this middle-grade novel, a girl finds a way forward after the loss of her mother."

"Reared by ghosts, werewolves and other residents of the hillside cemetery he calls home, an orphan named Nobody Owens wonders how he will manage to survive among the living having learned all his lessons from the dead. And the man Jack — who killed the rest of Nobody's family — is itching to finish the job."

"In vivid poems that reflect the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, an award-winning author shares what it was like to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s in both the North and the South." Other ways to begin a review include:

• Quote: A striking quote from the book ("It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.") can make for a powerful beginning. This quote begins George Orwell's novel 1984 .
• Background: What makes this book important or interesting? Is the author famous? Is it a series? This is This is how Amazon introduces Divergent : "This first book in Veronica Roth's #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy is the novel the inspired the major motion picture."
• Interesting Fact: For nonfiction books in particular, an interesting fact from the book may create a powerful opening for a review. In this review of The Middle East by Philip Steele, Zander H. of Mid-America Mensa asks, "Did you know that the Saudi Arabia's Rub' al-Khali desert reaches temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit in the day and plummets to the freezing point at night?"
• Explanation of a term: If a word or phrase in the book or title is confusing or vitally important to understand, you may wish to begin the review explaining that term.

Process: What should I write about?

Deciding what to say about the book can be challenging. Use the following ideas as a guide, but remember that you should not put all of this into a single review — that would make for a very long review! Choose the things that fit this particular book best.

General Information What the reader ought to know

• What kind of book is it? (Picture book? Historical fiction? Nonfiction? Fantasy? Adventure?)
• Does the book belong to a series?
• How long is the book? Is it an easy or a challenging read?
• Is there anything that would be helpful for the reader to know about the author? For instance, is the author an expert in the field, the author of other popular books, or a first-time author?
• How does the book compare to other books on the same topic or in the same genre?
• Is the book written in a formal or informal style? Is the language remarkable in any way?
• What ages is the book geared to?
• Is the book written in normal prose? If it is written in poetic form, does it rhyme?

Plot What happens?

Writing about the plot is the trickiest part of a review because you want to give the reader a feel for what the book is about without spoiling the book for future readers. The most important thing to remember is that you must never give away the ending. No one likes a spoiler.

One possibility for doing this is to set up the premise (A brother and a sister find themselves lost in the woods at the mercy of an evil witch. Will they be able to outsmart her and escape?). Another possibility is to set up the major conflict in the book and leave it unresolved (Sometimes the waiting is the hardest part or He didn't know what he stood to lose or Finding your purpose in life can be as easy as finding a true friend.)

Try to avoid using the tired phrase "This book is about…" Instead, just jump right in (The stuffed rabbit wanted more than anything to live in the big old house with the wild oak trees.)

Characters Who lives in the book?

Reviews should answer questions about the characters in fiction books or non-fiction books about people. Some possible questions to answer include:

• Who are the main characters? Include the protagonist and antagonist.
• What makes them interesting?
• Do they act like real people act or are they too good or too evil to be believable?
• Are they human?
• What conflicts do they face?
• Are they likeable or understandable?
• How do they connect with each other?
• Do they appear in other books?
• Could you relate to any of the characters in the story?
• What problems did the main characters face?
• Who was your favorite character, and why?
• We learn about characters from things they do and say, as well as things other characters say about them. You may wish to include examples of these things.

Theme What is the book about at its heart?

What is the book really about? This isn't the plot, but rather the ideas behind the story. Is it about the triumph of good over evil or friendship or love or hope? Some common themes include: change, desire to escape, facing a challenge, heroism, the quest for power, and human weaknesses.

Sometimes a book will have a moral — a lesson to learn. If so, the theme is usually connected to that moral. As you write about the theme, try to identify what makes the book worth reading. What will the reader think about long after the book is finished? Ask yourself if there any particular lines in the book that strike you as meaningful.

Setting Where are we?

The setting is the time and place the story occurs. When you write about the setting in a review, include more than just the location. Some things to consider:

• Is the book set in the past, present or future?
• Is it set in the world we know or is it a fantastical world?
• Is it mostly realistic with elements of fantasy (animals that can talk, for example)?
• Is the setting unclear and fuzzy, or can you easily make the movie in your mind?
• How much does the author draw you into the setting and how does s/he accomplish that?

Opinion & Analysis What do you really think?

This is where the reviewer shares his/her reactions to the book that go beyond the essential points described above. You may spend half of the review on this section. Some possible questions to address include:

• Why do you think other readers would enjoy it? Why did you enjoy it (if you did) or why didn't you (if you didn't).
• What ages or types of readers do you think would like the book?
• How does it compare with other books that are in the same genre or by the same author?
• Does the book engage your emotions? If a book made you laugh or cry or think about it for days, be sure to include that.
• What do you like or dislike about the author's writing style? Is it funny? Is it hard to follow? Is it engaging and conversational in tone?
• How well do you think the author achieved what s/he was going for in the writing of the book? Do you think you felt what the author was hoping you would feel?
• Did the book feel complete, or did it feel as though key elements were left out?
• How does the book compare to other books like it you've read?

Are there parts that are simply not believable, even allowing for the reader's understanding that it is fiction or even fantasy?

• Are there mistakes?
• Would you describe the book as for entertainment, self-improvement, or information?
• What was your favorite part of the book?
• Would you have done anything differently had you been the author?
• Would any reader enjoy this book? If not, to what ages or type of reader would it appeal?

Special situations: Nonfiction and young reviewers

Some of the tips and ideas above work best for fiction, and some of it is a little too complicated for very young reviewers.

Nonfiction What to do if it's real

When reviewing a book of nonfiction, you will want to consider these questions:

• What was the author's purpose in writing the book? Did the author accomplish that purpose?
• Who is the target audience for the book?
• What do you think is the book's greatest value? What makes it special or worthwhile?
• Are the facts shared accurate?
• Is the book interesting and hold your attention?
• Would it be a useful addition to a school or public library?
• If the book is a biography or autobiography, how sympathetic is the subject?
• Is it easy to understand the ideas?
• Are there extra features that add to the enjoyment of the book, such as maps, indexes, glossaries, or other materials?
• Are the illustrations helpful?

Young Reviewers Keeping it simple

Reviewing a book can be fun, and it's not hard at all. Just ask yourself these questions:

• What is the book about? You don't need to tell the whole story over — just give an idea of what it's about.
• Do you think other people would like it?
• Did you think it was funny or sad?
• Did you learn something from the book?
• l Did you think it was interesting?
• Would you want to read it again?
• Would you want to read other books by the same author or about the same subject?
• What was your favorite part?
• Did you like the pictures?

Remember! Don't give away the ending. Let's keep that a surprise.

General Tips & Ideas

Use a few quotes or phrases (keep them short) from the book to illustrate the points you make about the book. If there are illustrations, be sure to comment on those. Are they well done? Has the illustrator done other well-known books?

Make sure you include a conclusion to the review — don't leave it hanging. The conclusion can be just one sentence (Overall, this book is a terrific choice for those who…).

You can use the transition word handout at the end of the Writer's Toolbox to find ideas for words to connect the ideas in your review. If you would like to read some well-written reviews, look for reviews of books for young people at The New York Times or National Public Radio .

Rating Books How to award stars?

Most places you post reviews ask you to rate the book using a star system, typically in a range of from one to five stars. In your rating, you should consider how the book compares to other books like it. Don't compare a long novel to a short poetry book — that's not a valid comparison.

It's important to remember that it's not asking you to only give five stars to the very best books ever written.

• 5 Stars: I'm glad I read it or I loved it (this doesn't mean it was your favorite book ever).
• 4 Stars: I like it. It's worth reading.
• 3 Stars: It wasn't very good.
• 2 Stars: I don't like it at all.
• 1 Star: I hate it.

KS1 Book Review

This simply formatted KS1 Book Review Sheet will encourage your children to think about the book they have read, by asking them to write what it was about, as well as whether they enjoyed it or not!

https://planbee.com is the hive of primary resources and lesson planning . We're a team of educators who understand the pressures of teaching. Our resources improve the well-being of teachers by saving them LOADS of time on planning and preparation. Every single PlanBee resource is created by an experienced primary teacher and designed to help you deliver high-quality teaching and learning in your classroom.

Writing a book review

Part of English Comprehension Year 3 Year 4

Discussing a book

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How to Write a Book Review: The Ultimate Guide

WHAT IS A BOOK REVIEW?

Traditionally, book reviews are evaluations of a recently published book in any genre. Usually, around the 500 to 700-word mark, they briefly describe a text’s main elements while appraising the work’s strengths and weaknesses. Published book reviews can appear in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. They provide the reader with an overview of the book itself and indicate whether or not the reviewer would recommend the book to the reader.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A BOOK REVIEW?

There was a time when book reviews were a regular appearance in every quality newspaper and many periodicals. They were essential elements in whether or not a book would sell well. A review from a heavyweight critic could often be the deciding factor in whether a book became a bestseller or a damp squib. In the last few decades, however, the book review’s influence has waned considerably, with many potential book buyers preferring to consult customer reviews on Amazon, or sites like Goodreads, before buying. As a result, book review’s appearance in newspapers, journals, and digital media has become less frequent.

WHY BOTHER TEACHING STUDENTS TO WRITE BOOK REVIEWS AT ALL?

Even in the heyday of the book review’s influence, few students who learned the craft of writing a book review became literary critics! The real value of crafting a well-written book review for a student does not lie in their ability to impact book sales. Understanding how to produce a well-written book review helps students to:

●     Engage critically with a text

●     Critically evaluate a text

●     Respond personally to a range of different writing genres

●     Improve their own reading, writing, and thinking skills.

Not to Be Confused with a Book Report!

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BOOK REVIEW AND A BOOK REPORT?

While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are clear differences in both the purpose and the format of the two genres. Generally speaking, book reports aim to give a more detailed outline of what occurs in a book. A book report on a work of fiction will tend to give a comprehensive account of the characters, major plot lines, and themes in the book. Book reports are usually written around the K-12 age range, while book reviews tend not to be undertaken by those at the younger end of this age range due to the need for the higher-level critical skills required in writing them. At their highest expression, book reviews are written at the college level and by professional critics.

Learn how to write a book review step by step with our complete guide for students and teachers by familiarizing yourself with the structure and features.

BOOK REVIEW STRUCTURE

ANALYZE Evaluate the book with a critical mind.

THOROUGHNESS The whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. Review the book as a WHOLE.

COMPARE Where appropriate compare to similar texts and genres.

THUMBS UP OR DOWN? You are going to have to inevitably recommend or reject this book to potential readers.

BE CONSISTENT Take a stance and stick with it throughout your review.

FEATURES OF A BOOK REVIEW

PAST TENSE You are writing about a book you have already read.

EMOTIVE LANGUAGE Whatever your stance or opinion be passionate about it. Your audience will thank you for it.

VOICE Both active and passive voice are used in recounts.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF TEXTS

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ELEMENTS OF A BOOK REVIEW

As with any of the writing genres we teach our students, a book review can be helpfully explained in terms of criteria. While there is much to the ‘art’ of writing, there is also, thankfully, a lot of the nuts and bolts that can be listed too. Have students consider the following elements before writing:

●     Title: Often, the title of the book review will correspond to the title of the text itself, but there may also be some examination of the title’s relevance. How does it fit into the purpose of the work as a whole? Does it convey a message or reveal larger themes explored within the work?

●     Author: Within the book review, there may be some discussion of who the author is and what they have written before, especially if it relates to the current work being reviewed. There may be some mention of the author’s style and what they are best known for. If the author has received any awards or prizes, this may also be mentioned within the body of the review.

●     Genre: A book review will identify the genre that the book belongs to, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry, romance, science-fiction, history etc. The genre will likely tie in, too with who the intended audience for the book is and what the overall purpose of the work is.

●     Book Jacket / Cover: Often, a book’s cover will contain artwork that is worthy of comment. It may contain interesting details related to the text that contribute to, or detract from, the work as a whole.

●     Structure: The book’s structure will often be heavily informed by its genre. Have students examine how the book is organized before writing their review. Does it contain a preface from a guest editor, for example? Is it written in sections or chapters? Does it have a table of contents, index, glossary etc.? While all these details may not make it into the review itself, looking at how the book is structured may reveal some interesting aspects.

●     Publisher and Price: A book review will usually contain details of who publishes the book and its cost. A review will often provide details of where the book is available too.

BOOK REVIEW KEY ELEMENTS

As students read and engage with the work they will review, they will develop a sense of the shape their review will take. This will begin with the summary. Encourage students to take notes during the reading of the work that will help them in writing the summary that will form an essential part of their review. Aspects of the book they may wish to take notes on in a work of fiction may include:

●     Characters: Who are the main characters? What are their motivations? Are they convincingly drawn? Or are they empathetic characters?

●     Themes: What are the main themes of the work? Are there recurring motifs in the work? Is the exploration of the themes deep or surface only?

●     Style: What are the key aspects of the writer’s style? How does it fit into the wider literary world?

●     Plot: What is the story’s main catalyst? What happens in the rising action? What are the story’s subplots? 

A book review will generally begin with a short summary of the work itself. However, it is important not to give too much away, remind students – no spoilers, please! For nonfiction works, this may be a summary of the main arguments of the work, again, without giving too much detail away. In a work of fiction, a book review will often summarise up to the rising action of the piece without going beyond to reveal too much!

The summary should also provide some orientation for the reader. Given the nature of the purpose of a review, it is important that students’ consider their intended audience in the writing of their review. Readers will most likely not have read the book in question and will require some orientation. This is often achieved through introductions to the main characters, themes, primary arguments etc. This will help the reader to gauge whether or not the book is of interest to them.

Once your student has summarized the work, it is time to ‘review’ in earnest. At this point, the student should begin to detail their own opinion of the book. To do this well they should:

i. Make It Personal

Often when teaching essay writing we will talk to our students about the importance of climbing up and down the ladder of abstraction. Just as it is helpful to explore large, more abstract concepts in an essay by bringing it down to Earth, in a book review, it is important that students can relate the characters, themes, ideas etc to their own lives.

Book reviews are meant to be subjective. They are opinion pieces, and opinions grow out of our experiences of life. Encourage students to link the work they are writing about to their own personal life within the body of the review. By making this personal connection to the work, students contextualize their opinions for the readers and help them to understand whether the book will be of interest to them or not in the process.

ii. Make It Universal

Just as it is important to climb down the ladder of abstraction to show how the work relates to individual life, it is important to climb upwards on the ladder too. Students should endeavor to show how the ideas explored in the book relate to the wider world. The may be in the form of the universality of the underlying themes in a work of fiction or, for example, the international implications for arguments expressed in a work of nonfiction.

iii. Support Opinions with Evidence

A book review is a subjective piece of writing by its very nature. However, just because it is subjective does not mean that opinions do not need to be justified. Make sure students understand how to back up their opinions with various forms of evidence, for example, quotations, statistics, and the use of primary and secondary sources.

EDIT AND REVISE YOUR BOOK REVIEW

As with any writing genre, encourage students to polish things up with review and revision at the end. Encourage them to proofread and check for accurate spelling throughout, with particular attention to the author’s name, character names, publisher etc. 

It is good practice too for students to double-check their use of evidence. Are statements supported? Are the statistics used correctly? Are the quotations from the text accurate? Mistakes such as these uncorrected can do great damage to the value of a book review as they can undermine the reader’s confidence in the writer’s judgement.

The discipline of writing book reviews offers students opportunities to develop their writing skills and exercise their critical faculties. Book reviews can be valuable standalone activities or serve as a part of a series of activities engaging with a central text. They can also serve as an effective springboard into later discussion work based on the ideas and issues explored in a particular book. Though the book review does not hold the sway it once did in the mind’s of the reading public, it still serves as an effective teaching tool in our classrooms today.

Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

BOOK REVIEW GRAPHIC ORGANIZER (TEMPLATE)

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Book and Movie review writing examples (Student Writing Samples)

Below are a collection of student writing samples of book reviews.  Click on the image to enlarge and explore them in greater detail.  Please take a moment to both read the movie or book review in detail but also the teacher and student guides which highlight some of the key elements of writing a text review

Please understand these student writing samples are not intended to be perfect examples for each age or grade level but a piece of writing for students and teachers to explore together to critically analyze to improve student writing skills and deepen their understanding of book review writing.

We would recommend reading the example either a year above and below, as well as the grade you are currently working with to gain a broader appreciation of this text type .

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Book review template

Subject: English

Age range: 5-7

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

24 June 2016

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meganrules83

Such a great resource and already differentiated. Thank you so much for sharing it for free, much appreciated.

Empty reply does not make any sense for the end user

Lovely resource, though the 'for boys' 'for girls' in the interests is outdated. Easy to edit however.

claires2301

Fab differentiated and clear resource, thanks for sharing!

katiesmith91

Lovely differentiated book reviews. Thank you! I love forward to giving these to my children to review the books they have been reading.

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Book Review Lesson Plan: Teach Students How to Write a Successful Book Report

• Categories : High school english lesson plans grades 9 12
• Tags : High school lesson plans & tips

Teaching Students to Write a Book Review

I’ve always been an avid reader, but I hit a snag around high school and college when it came to choosing books for reading pleasure. I started reading book reviews out of my People magazine and online to help narrow down my choices. Through reading reviews, I was introduced to some of my all-time favorite novels, like The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Book reviews are a useful resource for reading fans, but can also be an alternative assessment tool for teachers.

Before students can write a book review, you must introduce them to professionally written pieces. Take them to the computer lab and go to sites that have notable book reviews, like the New York Times or Barnes and Noble Review. If you do not have access to the internet, you can always clip reviews from magazines, like People or from the newspaper. Read several reviews as a class and discuss the format reviewers use when writing about a book. Be sure to point out that reviews provide a general summary, name major characters, introduce the major conflicts in the story, and give either a positive, negative, or neutral opinion of the work. Good reviews will never reveal the resolution to the conflict, so encourage them to avoid giving away the ending!

I also use this time discuss how reviewing books, movies, and other media can easily turn into a profession. We discuss how writing and expressing one’s opinions clearly can benefit a future reviewer. Students are in awe at the many different types of reviewers that are in our mainstream media today. There are reviewers for video games, phone apps, computer software, as well as the typical book and movie reviewers. As a class we discuss how much fun a career in reviewing could bring to someone who has an avid interest in the subject matter they are critiquing. Tying a real-world application to the assignment helps middle school kids to see the answer to the eternal adolescent question, “Why do I need to know this” that every teacher seems to encounter on a daily (if not on a daily basis)!

How to Implement and Assess Student Reviews

Develop a structure for the book review, depending on the length you desire the review to be. I usually like students to implement the “Plot Pyramid” structure that they learn early on in the year, which follows the five steps of plot organization: Exposition, Conflict/Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action/denouement, and Resolution. Of course, I have them leave off resolution, so the ending to the novel is not revealed to the reader. This ends up being a four paragraph structure (minus the resolution), and then I have them add an “opinion paragraph” at the end of their plot assessment to make the structure a five-paragraph essay form.

If you have advanced students, or if you think your students are ready, you can also require quote integration into the article. Using the Quote Burger Method , assign students to integrate a certain number of quotes within their writing to bring a flavor and voice to the article that mirror’s the book. You will also be able to pick up on who actually read the book, and who is “writing blind”, based on the relevance of their quotes. At the end of the article, students can also rank the book on a four star system (one star being a horrible book and four stars being an awesome book). Students can draw the stars and color them in, or you can use clip art in Microsoft Word….either way, assigning a star ranking adds visual appeal to their review and peaks student interest in the review.

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Y1 Grammar Punctuation and Spelling

Writing in a Book Lesson

This Writing in a Book lesson covers the prior learning of applying phonics sounds to label school images, before moving onto the main skill of writing in a book.

The lesson starts with a prior learning activity to check pupils’ understanding. Children can then practise further by completing the activities and can extend their learning with engaging reasoning and application tasks.

National Curriculum Objective This step does not relate to a YEAR ONE objective. However, this remains a crucial step in teaching or reminding children how their own writing should be presented. This step should be used to help children adapt to how they will be writing in Year One.

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Resources for teachers

Interactive activities for children

2 Teaching Support

Lesson Slides

These lesson slides guide pupils through the prior learning of applying phonics sounds to label school images, before moving onto the main skill of writing in a book. There are a number of questions to check pupils' understanding throughout.

Modelling PowerPoint

This PowerPoint can be used to model the questions that the children will complete on the varied fluency and application and reasoning worksheets as part of this lesson.

Scheme of Work

This is a free scheme of work for Year 1 Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. This resource is the first block in the teaching sequence and includes 6 small steps with guidance for teaching.

These are the same as the lesson slides on Classroom Secrets. You can assign this as an activity for pupils to access individually in school or remotely from home.

1 Prior Learning

Prior Learning Activity

This Writing in a Book Prior Learning Activity recaps the prior learning of applying phonics sounds to label school images before moving onto the main skill of writing in a book.

Interactive Activity

This Reception School Labelling Game is designed to check pupil's ability to apply their phonics knowledge to label images of school items.

2 Varied Fluency

Varied Fluency

This differentiated worksheet includes varied fluency questions for pupils to support the teaching of this step.

Mixed Activity

This main activity includes varied fluency, application and reasoning questions for pupils to practise the main skill of writing in a book.

This Year 1 Writing in a Book Game is designed to check pupils' ability to write in a book.

2 Application

Application and Reasoning

This differentiated worksheet includes application and reasoning questions to support the teaching of this step.

Application

This writing in a book application task includes an activity which can be used to allow pupils to apply their understanding of the concepts taught in the writing in a book lesson.

This differentiated worksheet includes varied fluency and application and reasoning questions to support the teaching of this step.

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Lessons by Ian McEwan review – life-and-times epic of a feckless boomer

McEwan takes aim at the postwar generation in this old-fashioned but generous and humane portrait of individual indecision against the backdrop of history

I an McEwan’s last book, 2019’s The Cockroach , was a petty-hearted Brexit fable and Kafka spoof. Instead of a man waking in the body of a bug, a bug wakes in the body of the British prime minister. Ensconced at No 10, the insect PM sets about creating a squalid paradise for his fellow critters – a septic isle. It’s not hard to reduce the UK to filth and ruin: just give the idiot humans exactly what they want.

The Cockroach was less a satire than a sneer, a book that set out to entrench rather than interrogate the divisions that led to Brexit. It was all carapace, no guts: a testament to the easy, insular comforts of self-righteousness. It seemed McEwan had finally succumbed to that curmudgeonly old cliche, the young renegade turned sour and incurious. And so, when it was announced that the veteran author’s new novel would be a 500-page sociopolitical epic – “a chronicle of our times” – it was hard not to be wary. Even the title felt like a scold: Lessons.

McEwan’s 17th novel is old-fashioned, digressive and indulgently long; the hero is a gold-plated ditherer, and the story opens with a teenage wank (few books are improved by an achingly sentimental wank). But Lessons is also deeply generous. It’s compassionate and gentle, and so bereft of cynicism it feels almost radical. Can earnestness be a form of literary rebellion?

In October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, an English schoolboy arrives unannounced at his piano teacher’s house. He stands on her doorstep in his drainpipe trousers and sharp-toed winklepickers, twitchy with eroticised terror. The boy, Roland Baines, is 14; his teacher, Miss Cornell, is 25. Roland fears that the world is about to end, and he will die a virgin. Miss Cornell does not turn him away. What happens between them in that quiet cottage will score a line across Roland’s life. It is “the moment from which all else fanned out and upwards with the extravagance of a peacock’s tail”.

The encounter reeks of schoolboy fantasies: an insatiable older woman who offers carnal instruction, then repairs to the kitchen to prepare a Sunday roast. But this discomfort is McEwan’s point. Roland will forever struggle to give his encounter with Miss Cornell moral shape, to pin down “the nature of the harm”. He will mistrust his memory, his intentions, his desires. “You’ll spend the rest of your life looking for what you’ve had here,” Miss Cornell warns him. “That’s a prediction, not a curse.” It is both.

Roland will “drift through an unchosen life” – a creature of reaction. He will drift into marriage and fatherhood, he will drift from career to career, and he will drift through postwar Britain. The reunification of Europe; glasnost and perestroika; Thatcherism and the Aids crisis; New Labour and the Iraq invasion; Brexit and the pandemic: feckless Roland will drift through it all. “By what logic or motivation or helpless surrender did we all, hour by hour, transport ourselves within a generation from the thrill of optimism at Berlin’s falling wall to the storming of the American Capitol?” Lessons asks. Roland is McEwan’s answer – a man who is forever mistaking his indecision for powerlessness, and his comforts for luck. Lessons is a portrait of sociopolitical entropy, a lesson in squandering.

McEwan’s sights are aimed squarely at the generation to which he belongs: those postwar children who “lolled on history’s aproned lap, nestling into a little fold of time, eating all the cream”. Roland is a prototypical baby boomer: raised by war-haunted veterans, loved at arm’s length, and schooled in “nuanced loutishness”. At his state boarding school, young Roland watches his classmates learn to be “conservative guardians of the existing order”, and perfect their tools of influence: satire, parody, mockery. As an adult, he watches as those same bullyboys weaponise that scorn. And yet, beyond smuggling Bob Dylan records into East Berlin in his 20s, Roland is never quite impelled to do anything; he’s complicit in his complacency. He’s voted the right way, after all: his conscience is clear.

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The self-interrogative courage that was so palpably missing from The Cockroach is here. So, too, is the humour (a fight with a junior minister – two silver-haired gents wrestling over cremation ashes – is a last-act delight). Lessons is McEwan’s answer to William Boyd’s Any Human Heart , John Williams’s Stoner , or Richard Ford ’s Bascombe trilogy: novels that refract history through the life of one man. They are novels pinned to time but, in their intimacies, they also affirm something elemental. Lessons is the book it hopes to be: a hymn to the “commonplace and wondrous”, a tale of humane grace.

But it’s the female characters – from joyful children to art monsters – who give this novel its heft and verve (and perhaps its title). Next to them, McEwan’s everyman feels a little gormless and grey. There’s Miss Cornell, of course, with her piano lessons and her terrifying thrall; and Roland’s timorous mother, whose cast-iron silences hide a story of wartime shame. There’s Roland’s best friend, who teaches him how to die; and his mother-in-law, who – for the briefest of moments – lives the life she wanted. And then there is Alissa, Roland’s first wife, who chooses her writerly ambitions over motherhood, and leaves him in embittered awe.

Roland learns from them all, lesson after lesson, everything from the demands of genius to the virtue of a clean kitchen table. It’s a wearying trope: women as instruments and catalysts of male insight. But as Roland’s granddaughter reminds him: “A shame to ruin a good tale by turning it into a lesson.”

Lessons by Ian McEwan (Vintage Publishing, £20). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

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Economics in One Lesson

While Economics may not be my most watched videos, I personally still want to know more about the topic, so the week of January 23, 2022, I read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Original review posted on YouTube , but is now available on Rumble and PodBean .

I’m going to start with a basic biography, which is relevant to the review to understand just how awesome Henry Hazlitt was. He was not a trained economist, he did not have a degree in economics, or anything for that matter, having dropped out of college to support his mother, ultimately becoming a journalist. He taught himself economics while writing articles about the topic for The Wall Street Journal, New York Evening Magazine, New York Times, and Newsweek….he wrote for all these publications, specifically on the economy.

And he became recognized as one of the preeminent economists, by such noted figures as Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Walter E Williams, and Thomas Sowell, to name a few. The 50th anniversary edition, which is the one I read, had the forward written by Steve Forbes, of Forbes Magazine fame. Basically, anyone who actually understands economics, like actual economics, not that bullshit keynsian garbage that governments rely on to make idiot policy…I am actually enraged by how much governments rely on Keynes to make policy. Keyne’s is not the topic of this weeks book.

I was a little surprised this book came in a 200 pages. I thought to myself “Self, that I a lot of words for one lesson.” The one lesson itself is only about 40 words, and it’s compacted into a pretty concise sentence:

“The Art of Economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate, but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists of tracing the consequences of that policy, not merely for one group, but for all groups.”

I think it’s safe to say that the Government has failed spectacularly at economics. Starting with Keynes. Again, not the topic of this book.

Anything less than the above definition and you don’t know dick about economics. And he spends the rest of the book applying that lesson to different scenarios and a host of governmental policies and procedures. Starting with the most basic and pernicious evil, the Broken Window Fallacy, and ending with the attack on savings. Which interestingly enough, is happening again.

The attack on savings is in the news again, and it’s interesting I know about it because I don’t watch the news. I get my news through memes and other peoples outrage. But it’s so prevalent in the news that it has now funneled into those memes, which is how I know about it.

Topics like why destruction of property is good. Why taxes are good. Why new machines are bad. Why the government needs to created jobs. Full employment is a good thing. Tariffs are good. Parity in prices are good. Stabilizing exports and price fixing. Rent control, minimum wage laws….all of these have come out of the talking heads in recent news.

Hazlitt breaks down each and every one and applies his lesson to it. In detail. He even tackles that most hated of Libertarian enemies: The Public Road.

Let’s start with the most fundamental of evils, The Broken Window Fallacy. And this one is pernicious because it’s easy to see one aspect of it as good, and that is where most people stop. The example he gives in the book is a Baker, who gets his window broken by a hoodlum….yes he uses the word hoodlum. The book was written in 1946.  The hoodlum runs off and no one sees who it was, so the Baker can’t catch him and make his parents pay for it, meaning the fix is entirely on the Baker. Since he can’t leave his store open to the elements, the Baker calls the Glazier (the guy who fixes windows) to come repair his window at a cost of say $250.

This is where the run of the mill government small thinker stops. The broken window has created work for the Glazier, and this is a good thing. But Hazlitt asks “What about the Tailor?” Well, who the fuck is the Tailor? Where does he come into play. See, the Baker was planning on buying a new suit, but with this sudden expense, he can no longer buy the suit, he has to pay the Glazier instead. Business for the Glazier, costs the Tailor business. And it’s also bad for the Baker because instead of buying what he wants, he has to buy what he needs.

Actions have consequences. And the broken glass costs the Baker his new suit, and the Tailor that sale. That’s the long term effect Hazlitt mentions. And that applies outwards in ripple effects. Since the Tailor didn’t get that sale, now he can’t afford the next car payment, for example.

Hazlitt builds on this lesson in each chapter. So the next chapter expands on the Broken Window Fallacy to explain how detrimental war is for the economy. Governments tend to thing that war stokes the economy. Because you know, armaments ramp up, glass and construction businesses boom as they have to rebuild what was just bombed. In reality, war is only good for the arms manufacturers. If we would quit bombing the shit out of each other, think of how much more advanced the world would be.

Civilizations, economy, medicine, everything would be more advanced. Because instead of rebuilding what had been destroyed, we’d be able to focus on advancing existing technique. Better things. We could improve on past technology and knowledge.

This book directly argues in favor of Free Market Capitalism, which has never actually been tried, despite what socialists would want you to think. And the concept of not having governments interfere in the markets, which has also never been tried.

He tears a gaping hole in Unions. He acknowledges that Unions have had their place in history and have done good, but they no longer serve any positive function and are now little more than corrupt obstructionists. He rips them apart. Which means as early as 1946, Unions were obsolete in a market economy.

He updated all the figures in the book for the 30th anniversary edition which was released in 1977, but no updates were done after that for the 50th anniversary edition released in 1996, because it was released posthumously, Hazlitt having died in 1993.

In all, there are 23 applications of The Lesson in the book. The other two I will specifically address in this review are inflation, and the attack on savings. Both highly topical to current events, and honestly, they go hand in hand.

Inflation is a big hot topic, as 80% of all US dollars in circulation were printed between 01/2020 and 10/2021. This is not a good thing. Inflation has been wrecking economies since at least the 13th Century, as I learned while reading about Genghis Kahn and the Byzantine Empire. Ogodei Kahn inherited a solid gold standard from Genghis Kahn, and immediately wrecked it with inflation. The Byzantines devalued their currency by mixing silver with gold. The result was the same in either case: Economic depression always follows inflation. Just printing money does not, in fact, increase the currency value.

Inflation hurst the poor the most. Why is this? Because while there is suddenly more money circulating, the supply of actual goods does not concurrently increase. There is only so much milk a cow can produce. And I don’t mean that as a metaphor, I mean that literally. Since we can’t produce more cows than are born naturally, we can’t produce more milk to keep up with the supply of available dollars. So the cost of milk rises to meet the inflated dollar availability, leaving only the very wealthy able to buy milk.

We saw this in 1930’s Germany, we saw in in Zimbabwe, we see it now in Venezuela, which has been in an economic depression since 2010. Inflation played a role in each and every one of these. A crises is coming here. It has to because the current level of inflation is untenable.

The other side of this coin is the Attack on Savings. If people would just stop saving and spend that money, we could stave off the coming economic depression because people shopping stimulates the economy. Not so much.

Inflation and savings, while the topics go hand in hand, are entirely independent of each other. Which is seen as money left in savings is devalued by inflation. As currency circulation increases, the money in your account is worth less, because more of it is available in the general market. Scarcity breeds value, not availability.

Now, money left in your sock drawer is definitely losing value. There is nothing wrong with having money in your sock drawer just to have cash on hand. But money in a bank account will at least earn you a little interest. Very little at this time, as interest rates have been rapidly outpaced by inflation, but that little is better than nothing.

On the flip side, having money in your sock drawer means when the crash does happen, you won’t have to worry about a run on your bank and not being able to retrieve your funds at all. While everyone else is standing in line at the bank to get what they can, you can be at the store clearing the shelves of needed food supplies for you and your family. So there is that argument to be made.

Eventually the market will correct itself. It has to. It would do so faster if the government would get out of the fucking way. It’s going to be ugly as sin when it happens, but this is where having money in savings can help you. Because when the market crashes, you’ll have money available to buy some of those stocks rock bottom, and build your wealth as the value of stocks rises again. And that’s pretty much all I can say on that, because that’s literally as much as I understand about the markets. The good old buy low and sell high metric.

This book was an excellent primer on economics and the economy, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand what the heck is going on. It was easy to read and will get you a basic understanding of economics. Which I think is what Hazlitt was hoping for when he wrote it.  

President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler

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