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Summary
Summary
Eight-year-old Noah's problems seem easier to deal with if he doesn't think about them. So he runs away, taking an untrodden path through the forest.
Before long, he comes across a shop. But this is no ordinary shop: it's a toy shop, full of the most amazing toys, and brimming with the most wonderful magic. And here Noah meets a very unusual toymaker. The toymaker has a story to tell, and it's a story of adventure and wonder and broken promises. He takes Noah on a journey. A journey that will change his life.
Author Notes
Acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne was born in Dublin, Ireland on April 30, 1971. He studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He has written dozens of short stories and many novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. An award-winning film adaptation of this work was released in 2008. In 2015 his title, A History of Lonelines made The New Zealand Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7-10-John Boyne, the author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2006), again explores the theme of personal regrets in this odd but affecting story (2011, both David Fickling Books). Noah, 8, runs away from his home at the edge of a forest. The woods contain magical elements such as a talking dachshund and a hungry donkey near a rather strange tree. He comes upon a wondrous shop full of beautifully crafted wooden toys. Noah enters the shop and notices that the dolls appear to move and speak. He meets the owner, an unnamed old man, and they begin a lengthy conversation involving personal histories and the reason Noah ran away from what seems to be a loving family. Boyne gradually leaves clues about the identity of the old man who wrestles with regret over his treatment of his beloved father and about the reason Noah has run away. Inspired by the old man's regret and shame, Noah eventually decides to return home. Andrew Sachs is a marvelous narrator, perfectly voicing accents and emotions. Although the publisher indicates the book is intended for elementary grade students, young children will not pick up on the clues as to the old man's identity and the tragedy Noah must face is pretty intense. The writing is lovely and the narration superb, but this may require older listeners.-B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, Santa Barbara, CA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Noah, eight, "couldn't bear to stay [home] any longer." The author of the controversial Boy in the Striped Pajamas (rev. 9/06) invokes several literary fantasies here: Noah's unexplained opening bolt before sunrise recalls Alice's rabbit hole plunge; his try at picking apples for breakfast is an Oz-like run-in with indignant trees. The bulk of the book consists of dialogue between Noah and "the old man," a puppet maker with a sympathetic ear and memories of his own past. What is troubling Noah emerges in response to the man's parallel experiences. Each recounts significant events: in his youth, the man was a phenomenal runner so involved in his career that he forgot his promise to come home, arriving only after his Poppa's death -- a cautionary tale that finally sends Noah back to his own dying Mum in his own realistic world. Meanwhile, references to Pinocchio accumulate -- cricket, fox, cat, nose. Whatever the man carves from the wood of his remarkable regenerative tree is animate and can engage in amusing repartee; yet he has no customers. Curiously, Pinocchio himself (yes, the old man is he) regrets not only his tardy return to Geppetto but the immortality he forfeited by becoming "real." Choosing more wisely, Noah will thrive. Like Collodi's classic, this is weighed down by its message; still, it's briskly told, a clever use of its source, and a sympathetic take on a sober topic. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
John Boyne's debut children's novel, the 2006 Holocaust tale The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. Rarely has a children's book evoked such diametrically opposed reactions, having been embraced by some Jewish groups and dismissed or strongly criticised by others. It is perhaps an understatement, therefore, to say that this is a hard act to follow. Although Boyne has published two adult novels since Pyjamas - one concerning the mutiny on the Bounty and the other the murder of the Romanovs - Noah Barleywater Runs Away is his first return visit to children's fiction. And what a sparkling return it is. Highly amusing, refreshingly original and extremely moving, Barleywater fizzes with energy and ideas. It plays with language and perceptions and makes you smile as you eagerly turn the page to find out the next twist in the protagonists' outrageously fantastical adventures. The closest thing I can compare it to is David Almond's The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon, upon which I've previously heaped praise in this paper. Both are written with such an assurance and lightness of touch. Both are charming but without whimsy. Both offer rich layers of liberating absurdity, expertly grounded in their own internal logic. The end results are, however, two very different journeys. Noah Barleywater has to face real fears and loss. Boyne's Striped Pyjamas was presented as a fable; Barleywater is subtitled "a fairytale". The way Noah Barleywater encounters the various characters peopling the pages, their reactions and interactions, fit perfectly within the fairytale tradition. Here, an apple tree can talk, and a man reads an early evening edition of the newspaper in the morning, which is what makes it the early edition. It is a place where a door is left open because "the simplest way to prevent a break-in is to leave the door unlocked". It is when Noah meets the old toymaker - his father a toymaker before him - and the old man takes up the narrative that Barleywater hits new levels of delicious absurdity, but with real tenderness at its core. As a young man, this old man could run - boy, could he run. He ran four miles to school in two minutes. He became the only Olympian ever to win the 4x400-metre relay single-handedly, handing himself the baton "in a complicated manoeuvre that quickly passed into legend". According to him, that is. Are we really to believe a man who tells Noah that the then queen had him run to Balmoral and back with a prince on his back? At the centre of this book lies a mystery, and because I was privy to the secret before reading Barleywater, I can't say, hand on heart, whether or at what stage the penny might have dropped. But even if a reader does work out what lies behind both Noah Barleywater and the old man's running away, it's unlikely to spoil the enjoyment of this inventive tale. Sparsely illustrated by fellow Irishman Oliver Jeffers, Boyne's Barleywater is an eminently satisfying concoction, brimming with wonderful ideas and silliness, but infused with such truths as to leave one with very real tears in the eyes. Philip Ardagh's Splash, Crash and Loads of Cash is published by Faber. To order Noah Barleywater Runs Away for pounds 7.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Philip Ardagh [John Boyne]'s Striped Pyjamas was presented as a fable; Barleywater is subtitled "a fairytale". The way Noah Barleywater encounters the various characters peopling the pages, their reactions and interactions, fit perfectly within the fairytale tradition. Here, an apple tree can talk, and a man reads an early evening edition of the newspaper in the morning, which is what makes it the early edition. It is a place where a door is left open because "the simplest way to prevent a break-in is to leave the door unlocked". At the centre of this book lies a mystery, and because I was privy to the secret before reading Barleywater, I can't say, hand on heart, whether or at what stage the penny might have dropped. But even if a reader does work out what lies behind both Noah Barleywater and the old man's running away, it's unlikely to spoil the enjoyment of this inventive tale. - Philip Ardagh.
New York Review of Books Review
When an 8-year-old boy gets fed up and leaves home, he meets some strange characters. ON the morning that 8-year-old Noah Barleywater runs away, before he has gotten very far, an oddly short man pushing a cat in a wheelbarrow accuses him of making him late for a veterinary appointment. "If that happens, my cat is sure to die. And it will be all your fault. You really are a monstrous little boy." And so, darkly, begins "Noah Barleywater Runs Away," the most recent book by John Boyne ("The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"). The story, part adventure, part fairy tale, part coming-of-age, is an unusual one, told largely by a mysterious old toymaker to a precocious little boy who has set out to "make his own way in the world" despite the efforts of "a great blanket of happy memories trying to break through and smother sthe fresher, sadder ones." Fleeing the man, Noah finds himself at a mysterious toyshop filled with murmuring wooden puppets. Not one other person has ever entered this shop, he is told by the elderly proprietor. "Perhaps you were sent here for a reason." Together, tentatively, surrounded by inanimate objects - toys, doors, stairs and mirrors - that periodically offer comments, they tell each other their stories. "Aren't you running away from home because you're being bullied?" But no, it turns out. Noah has many good friends and does quite well in school. Seventh-cleverest boy in a class of 30. "I suppose it was your family, then." No, he has a wonderful family, as it happens. Recently, his mother was so thrilled by Noah's success at pinball (a score of 4,500,000!) that she looked around excitedly for a new adventure, insisting, "You only live once." Cue, foreshadowing: Their time together is short. Meanwhile, the toymaker's childhood, each aspect brought to mind by an intricately carved puppet, was a series of huge successes. He could run faster than anyone! Beating the bully, Toby Lovely, who beat him black and blue, was nothing compared with his victories at all the village races. He ran with royalty! He ran in the Olympics! "You will come back to me, won't you?" his Poppa asked, as he headed off for yet another race. "Do you promise?" "Yes, yes," the toymaker recalls telling his father at the time, "scarcely even thinking about whether I meant it or not." "I've had to live with a broken promise all my life," the toymaker confides to Noah. He had received a letter, while off racing, telling him that his father was very ill. "Did you get there in time? Did you get home before he . . . before anything. . . ." "Before he died?" the old man said. "Can't you say the word?" Noah Barleywaler returns home before the day's end, to face his mother's impending death. The toymaker, whose Poppa had been named Geppetto, returns to his carving, trying sadly once again to recreate his former self. In this charming and cleverly plotted story that tiptoes with humor and compassion, two characters teach each other how to grieve, how to forgive, and how, eventually, to remember what has been lost. Lois Lowry, a two-time Newbery medalist, is the author, most recently, of "Bless This Mouse," published in March.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Noah Barleywater left home in the early morning, before the sun rose, before the dogs woke, before the dew stopped falling on the fields. He climbed out of bed and shuffled into the clothes he'd laid out the night before, holding his breath as he crept quietly downstairs. Three of the steps had a loud creak in them where the wood didn't knit together correctly so he walked very softly on each one, desperate to make as little noise as possible. In the hallway he took his coat off the hook but didn't put his shoes on until he had already left the house. He walked down the laneway, opened the gate, went through and closed it again, treading as lightly as he could in case his parents heard the sound of the gravel crunching beneath his feet and came downstairs to investigate. It was still dark at this hour and Noah had to squint to make out the road that twisted and turned up ahead. The growing light would allow him to sense any danger that might be lurking in the shadows. When he got to the end of the first quarter-mile, at just that point where he could turn round one last time and still make out his home in the distance, he stared at the smoke rising from the chimney that stretched upwards from the kitchen fireplace and thought of his family inside, all safely tucked up in their beds, unaware that he was leaving them for ever. And despite himself, he felt a little sad. Am I doing the right thing? he wondered, a great blanket of happy memories trying to break through and smother the fresher, sadder ones. But he had no choice. He couldn't bear to stay any longer. No one could blame him for that, surely. Anyway, it was probably best that he went out to make his own way in the world. After all, he was already eight years old and the truth was, he hadn't really done anything with his life so far. A boy in his class, Charlie Charlton, had appeared in the local newspaper when he was only seven, because the Queen had come to open a day centre for all the grannies and granddads in the village, and he had been chosen to hand her a bunch of flowers and say, We're SO delighted you could make the journey, ma'am. A photograph had been taken where Charlie was grinning like the Cheshire cat as he presented the bouquet, and the Queen wore an expression that suggested she had smelled something funny but was far too well-brought-up to comment on it; he'd seen that expression on the Queen's face before and it always made him giggle. The photo had been placed on the school notice board the following day and had remained there until someone -- not Noah -- had drawn a moustache on Her Majesty's face and written some rude words in a speech bubble coming out of her mouth that nearly gave the headmaster, Mr Tushingham, a stroke. The whole thing had caused a terrible scandal, but at least Charlie Charlton had got his face in the papers and been the toast of the schoolyard for a few days. What had Noah ever done with his life to compare with that? Nothing. Why, only a few days before he'd tried to make a list of all his achievements, and this is what he'd come up with: 1. I have read fourteen books from cover to cover. 2. I won the bronze medal in the 500 metres at Sports Day last year and would have won silver if Breiffni O'Neill hadn't jumped the gun and got a head start. 3. I know the capital of Portugal. (It's Lisbon.) 4. I may be small for my age but I'm the seventh cleverest boy in my class. 5. I am an excellent speller. Five achievements at eight years of age , he thought at the time, shaking his head and pressing the tip of his pencil to his tongue even though his teacher, Miss Bright, screamed whenever anyone did that and said they would get lead poisoning. That's one achievement for every . . . He thought about it and did a series of quick calculations on a bit of scrap paper. One achievement for every one year, seven months and six days. Not very impressive at all. He tried to tell himself that this was the reason he was leaving home, because it seemed a lot more adventurous than the real reason, which was something he didn't want to think about. Not this early in the morning, anyway. And so here he was, out on his own, a young soldier on his way to battle. He turned round, thinking to himself, That's it! I'll never see that house again now! and continued on his way, strolling along with the air of a man who knows that, come the next election, there's every chance he will be elected mayor. It was important to look confident -- he realized that very early on. After all, there was a terrible tendency among adults to look at children travelling alone as if they were planning a crime of some sort. None of them ever thought that it might just be a young chap on his way to see the world and have a great adventure. They were so small-minded, grown-ups. That was one of their many problems. Excerpted from Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
