Teacher's Dead
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Product Description
Product Description
A teacher is dead, murdered by two of his students in front of the school. He was a good man. People liked him. So how could this happen? Why? It just doesn't make sense to Jackson, and he is determined to investigate the case until he understands. Benjamin Zephaniah has, once again, chosen a topical and hard-hitting subject - and he deals with it in his own uniquely empathetic and edgy way.
About the Author
Benjamin Zephaniah is probably one of the most high-profile international authors writing today, with an enormous breadth of appeal, equally popular with both adults and children. Most well known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults and ground-breaking performance poetry for children, Benjamin also has his own rap/reggae band, and has appeared on desert Island Discs. He is in constant demand internationally to perform his work: he is (he thinks) Nelson Mandela's favourite poet, and is the only Rastafarian poet to be short-listed for the Chairs of Poetry for both Oxford and Cambridge University. His previous novels for Bloomsbury are Face, Refugee Boy and Gangsta Rap. He has also edited an anthology of poems, The Bloomsbury Book of Love Poems.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A simple message,
By Dah J (Birmingham United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Teacher's Dead (Paperback)
This story delivers a simple message. It warns of the dangers of indiscriminately believing everything one hears, and invites the reader to evaluate, analyse and review information before choosing how we react to those who the details relate to. In short, the message is don't be taken in by everything you see and hear.
Devoid of the trappings of flowery rhetoric, Zephaniah presents a straightforward account of one boy's quest to find the truth behind a horrendous murder he witnesses in the school playground. There is a noticeable lack of adjectives and adverbs, but this only serves to distance the reader from forming pre-conceived ideas about the characters presented in the story. Zephaniah skilfully avoids stereotypes - we are not given any detail of ethnicity or religion. He does however, allude to some common mis-representations of individuals in society (noticeably mental illness) and allows us to consider the consequences of domestic violence, broken homes and absent parents; but without judgement or amplification. The reader is simply left to follow the story as the case unravels to a surprising and totally unexpected climax and here lies the strength of Zephaniah's writing, as the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place without any change in the pace or flow of the story. Zephaniah does not preach, moralize nor make assumptions; but neither does he miss the opportunity to drive home the importance of tackling bullying. The lead character Jackson Jones is an ordinary boy who engages in frank exchanges with his mother, openly asks questions, enters 'enemy territory' and also cries. He is not presented as a weakling, but neither is he given the kudos of a Hollywood hero. He is simply a teenager in any secondary school, in any town in the country; but what he discovers allows the reader to consider how we 'see' 'hear' and process what is presented to us as the truth.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A story of truth narrated by a kind-hearted nerd,
By
This review is from: Teacher's Dead (Paperback)
Teacher's Dead begins with the murder of Mr Joseph. He is stabbed by one of his students. The student, Lionel, and his friend, Ramzi, plead guilty very early in the novel. Thus, the plot itself is not so much about the murder, but rather about the experiences the first-person narrator Jackson makes as he tries to get to the bottom of this "case". The novel is the account of a schoolboy who is determined to reveal why his two fellow students killed his teacher.
Throughout the storyline there is a critique of the media coverage of the murder. In the newspapers and the TV news, the two boys are the bad guys and their families are to be blamed for them turning out to be such bad guys. Like the narrator, the two boys lived with their single mother. Jackson is angry about this over-simplification and traces the personal story of the two boys. What he finds is sadness. Soon, the school boy and the wife of his stabbed teacher become close friends. He calls it his "case" and reports his findings in a diary type of style to the reader. In the course of his investigations he has contact with two different gangs of teenage bullies. It turns out that one of these gangs is directly related to the murder of his teacher. Finally, Jackson even becomes friend with the mother of the murderer, who is a considered to be a witch by everybody else. The story is told in surprisingly distant terms. The first person narrator considers his search for the truth as a kind of personal therapy. However, we do not get an inward perspective of himself or of any of the characters. We get an idea of how some of the person involved must feel - the mum of the murderer feels lonely and sad, for example. But the reader is given little else than the necessary hints to make her/ his own assumptions. The book was written for young adults. Consequently, the simple language is justified. The language is reduced to tell the important facts. Benjamin Zephaniah likes documentaries and poetry. Both styles of narration are mixed in Teacher's Dead. What comes out is a detective story and an invitation to form one's own opinion. The first person narrator comes across several persons who are considered to have mental health problems and are let down by their neighbours and society. He approaches them without prejudice. A lot of his behaviour appears to be childlike naïve, but this serves to illustrate how painful prejudices can be for the concerned individuals. The book speaks up against bullying, whether it might happen at school, in the neighbourhood or via the media. Furthermore, a central theme is the aptitude to forgive. Altogether, I enjoyed reading this book by Zephaniah just as I enjoyed reading Face and Gangsta Rap because it reminds us about important inter-human values in an unorthodox and mind sharpening manner. The language used could be a bit more sophisticated for my taste. However, because of its simplicity the novel will be understood by a large number of readers. Zephaniah is well aware that his audience does not only consist of people with a university degree, thus, his language serves his purpose as a poet who wishes to inform people about "the truth".
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good read,
By barnsley girl "carro" (yorkshire) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Teacher's Dead (Paperback)
A good story for the over 12s. It makes you think about the issue of mental illness.
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