FLAMES Of THE TIGER

John Wilson, born on August 3, 1951 in Edinburgh, Scotland is a Canadian author who writes historical fiction and non-fiction. He has written a total of 30 books, 300 articles and essays, and 30 poems. In 1975 he received a Bachelor of Science from the University of St Andrews. After graduating, he worked as a geologist in Zimbabwe. In 1991 Wilson was a full time writer, one of his best books he wrote was “Where Soldiers Lie”. He got the Forest of Reading Red Maple Award.

Flames Of The Tiger, John Wilson 2003.

Flames Of The Tiger was a book about a German boy named Dieter during the time of WW2. He has to face the struggles of the war with his families and find a way to adapt or flee.

I liked how the author gave the perspective of a German boy because I've read a book about three Jewish children with different stories and how they fled to another country during WW2. The reason I liked it is because when you have two or more perspectives on the same event you look at it differently and it makes you think about it much more.

In the book Dieter’s dream was to be a part of the Hitler youth. He thought it was a boy scouts group where they went outside and did activities. When he joined the war Hitler was becoming desperate to win the war so he even sent little boys dieters age. His mom did not want to let him go and she even wanted to hide him but there was no point. In the end they sent him to war with his brother who had experience.

Dieter had to come back earlier because he had broken his leg. When he got home everything seemed well. He went out and got rations with his sister but her prized possession, her flute got blown up by bombs. It was the only thing that kept her humane. She was different after that incident. She just did whatever she could to survive and did not care about anything else. When their brother came back from war he told Dieter that he had to run. His parents have been saying the same thing, he needed to get to Canada. He convinced his brother to come along and as he was going to his parents were found dead by a wall. They grieved for a bit but it did not help, they had to make their way to Canada and stop at their uncle’s house without them. Overall I rate this book an 8/10 because it was very detailed on how life would be like, and the struggles you have to go through. I would recommend this book to people who can handle world war 2 topics because some people may not like it.

The article “Battle of Berlin” on Britannica talks about how the armies were all putting in their effort to secure Berlin. It talked about how the Soviets got all their power right outside Berlin ready to attack the germans. Within Berlin, there was already the pounding of bombs. The refugees and citizens were forced to hide within fallen structures, even then were still at risk of being hit by a bomb. The citizens were fearful they had nowhere to run and few places to hide, they were trapped in a hellhole. Hitler was giving hopeless orders as a final battle to defend, but it was hopeless. The article relates to the book “Flames of The Tiger” because it states that there were many bombs falling in Berlin and in the book, Dieter and his family always heard bombs and his sister even lost her most prized possession because of a bomb. The citizens also had to hide within structures that had been damaged, but even then they had to pray that one of the bombs didn’t land on them. They even were waiting for the other armies and feared the Soviets because it was common for them to treat the citizens poorly. In the book, Hitler even sent the Hitler Youth soldiers when they were younger than they would have been to be in the army because he was getting desperate. In the end, Hitler lost this great battle, and many people had suffered badly. Family members lost, lifelong injuries, trauma. There are many people who had to go through these terrible times of war, ultimately wars shaped the very economy we live in today. If not for events like this, the world would be very different.

Collage

tiger II tank:

I added this because there were some tiger tanks in the book and the name of the book even relates to it

Hitler youth uniform:

Iadded this because dieter wears one in the book and this is a good visual reference.

German flag:

Most part of the book took part in Germany

Canadian flag:

Canada was one of the countries that fought Germany

British flag:

Britan was also one of the countries that fought Germany

Map of Germany during WW II:

To give a perspective on how Germany was like during the story

New Book Cover

My favourite character in the book would be Dieter. The reason for this is because Evan though he and his family are going through a lot he still persevered.

He even did things that many other people would never dare too. An example of this is when he was forced to join the war he was not scared at all and actually was looking forward to be beside his brother and fight.

Another reason is because he went through a lot of character development like at the beginning he did not understand anything about the war and later on even participated in it.

He also went through a lot of harsh things like losing his parents, but he was able to recover and did what they told him.

In conclusion Dieter is my favourite character because of his perseverance, bravery, and his capability to fulfill his promise.