Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell, #3)

Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell #3)

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74  ·  rating details  ·  3,410 ratings  ·  90 reviews
Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This has never been more true than when he finds himself in his hometown on May 21, 1941, over forty years before his birth!

An accidental time traveler, Johnny knows his history. He knows England is at war, and he knows that on this day German bombs will fall on the town. It happened...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published April 3rd 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1996)
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Community Reviews

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Jared
The third book in Terry Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell series starts out with a bang. Literally. A bomb has fallen in the midst of Johnny's city. But the bomb dropped in World War II. Johnny discovers the history of the bomb and can't stop thinking about the people affected by it. One of the people affected by it ends up in Johnny's time -- the local bag lady, who is so mentally and temporally displaced that sometimes her body follows along.

Johnny and one of his friends help the lady get to the hosp...more
Kmcq
Could you imagine being able to time travel? Well Johnny Maxwell and his friends can in Terry Pratchet’s Johnny and the Bomb. I enjoyed this book and found it to be very interesting.
In the story, Johnny and his friends found Mrs. Tachyon, a local bag lady lying semiconscious in an alley. Then they called an ambulance, and took her mysterious, squeaky cart home to safeguard it. It was a mysterious collection of large black bags, and a vicious cat named guilty. Rumor also had it that the bags hel...more
John
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Erica Mukherjee
Time travel is a tricky concept. Because time is fluid, or particulate, or static or what have you, it is very difficult to harness its nature and cram it into the solid pages of a novel. Every reader has his own pet theory on the paradoxes that time travel may or may not cause and is therefore apt to be unsatisfied if the author does not subscribe to his personal believes on the matter. Generally any attempt at a dive into the complexities of time travel leaves the author exhausted and the rea...more
Natalie
I finished reading this book in just a bit less than three days, why? Because I was completely hooked, it's just such a brilliant book I can't express how much I love it! The plot revolves around a 13yr old boy named Johnny maxwell, who, after discovering a mad old woman called mrs tachyon unconscious in an alley, starts on an epic adventure to stop his town being bombed. But wait, the blackberry blitz happened in 1941! So how on earth can he do that? Simple, he'll just use mrs tachyon's battere...more
Colleen
2.5

Pratchett has covered a lot of ground in this trilogy: aliens and war, ghosts and our connections to our past, and time-travel and, um, war again.

Perhaps it's because, as I said in my review for Johnny and the Dead. I would pick ghosts over aliens - or time-travel - or perhaps that story just resonated more for me for some other reason, but it as definitely my favorite of the lot. I think this one would come in second.

It didn't quite have the same level of humor or pathos has the second book,...more
Wayne
We find Johnny has even more abilities. He's described as slightly odd, that his brain doesn't work like most people's. If you read "Only You Can Save Mankind" and "Johnny and the Dead" you would know this, but if you didn't read the prior two Johnny books, it'll be ok, but you MUST go read those too. Pratchett does a great job of creating a series that can be read in any order. So far he has yet to reference any of the other "Johnny" books in any of the "Johnny" books. So while it's the same ch...more
6forbes_jon
I just finished reading Johnny and the bomb by terry pratchett and in the book the main character Johnny tries to make a time machine to reverse the bad things he did. His friend named Mikey tries to help him but they have some drawbacks during the making of the time machine.the first problem is that Johnny can't find some of the pieces or parts that he needs.so he tries to go to the local hardware store to find them but he can't find them.in the end they manage to find a piece that he needs and...more
Sharon
Dec 10, 2008 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: young adults
This is the first of Pratchett's "Johnny Maxwell" trilogy that I read (despite it being the third in the series). Honestly, it took me a while to get into it. I think that I would have done well to read the other two books first, although Pratchett's books generally stand alone and do not have to be read in any particular order.

This was an entertaining read about a 13-year-old boy and his friends, who discover that the local bag lady's shopping trolley is actually a time machine. They travel bac...more
Raj
The last in the Johnny series, this one finds Johnny and friends time travelling to the 1941 blitz.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot. It's quite slim and I was able to read it quite quickly but there's a lot of ideas in it. And I smiled to see references to the Discworld and characters and ideas that would be re-used (with a fresh coat of paint) elsewhere.

I found Johnny himself interesting. Like Granny Weatherwax, he seems to have started off as a fairly ordinary person and become more powerful as...more
Jon Cox
Another interesting and funny book about Johnny, a very ordinary and slighly daft kid. The book gets a bit muddled in the whole time-travel mire, but doesn't get as hopelessly bound up and ruined like the Time-Travelers (Gideon) series. The characters are rounded out a bit more, which is interesting. The story is fast enough and simple enough to be a solid and non-committed, entertaining distraction. The semi-romantic interest is back in this one, and the ending presents a very nice, ambiguous s...more
Luisa
This is quite a charming ending to the Johnny stories. Johnny is a odd little character as per usual and gets himself in a lot of trouble with things that are supposed to be impossible. This time, he accidentally runs into time travelling, and ends up changing a few things about the past. However, this can cause a lot of trouble in the future, so he has to figure out how to fix that. His friend Kristi from the first book (Only You Can Save Mankind) is back and bossy as ever. His other usual frie...more
Jeremiah
Entry 1-

Johnny is the main character. He is a protagonist along with Kirsty, Wobbler, Yo-less, and Bigmac.
The antagonists are most of the people in the old Blachbury.


Entry 2- The point of view is from Johnny. The setting is in the new and old Blachbury. The theme is you can do anything and be anything.

Entry 3-

Johnny and his friends travel back in time using Mrs Tachyon's cart to the day that Blackbury was bombed and they stop the bombing. While Wobbler is trapped in the past they see Sir John wh...more
Catherine  Mustread
Aug 07, 2010 Catherine Mustread rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Catherine by: Children's War blog
Love the humor and the time travel. Interestingly intertwined with what we can learn (but generally don't) from history as well as from the words of wisdom of our elders and what they could learn from us too. My favorite of the trilogy and worth reading the other two in order to more fully appreciate this one. Johnny and his friends care for bag lady Mrs. Tachyon's cart while she's in the hospital and find they can use it to travel to different points in time, landing them in 1941 just before a...more
Linda
The trousers of life have never felt so worn, or cross-legged. This is Terry's style that I love, from "Dig for Victory, as if it were some kind of turnip" thru to "Take life as it was going to come ... And if it didn't come, go and fetch it". Sneaky in reference and observant of everything the story had me chuckling, and then a little reminiscent as the kids ignorantly whinged about nobody listening to them "when I know stuff!". I wonder how many kids reading the story get that reference. To th...more
Nikki
It's Terry Pratchett's doing, so of course it's fun. It plays around with the idea of time travel in a way that doesn't break my brain too much, which I can accept easily enough to drag me along for the ride. I'm told it's not the first book in the series, though, and it shows: I would probably have cared more if, well, I'd already cared.

I'm not really sure what to say about it. I was quite excited to get a Terry Pratchett book on my course, but now I've got it, I don't think I'm going to write...more
Darla
(Genre:Children's fiction) 2 1/2 stars. This is the 3rd and final book in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy and it's focus is on time and time travel. It didn't really click with me, even though I like the characters and usually Pratchett is just so funny and astute in his observations of people and culture. I debated on whether it was a low 3 stars book, but decided that since I would probably never buy it or reread it, it should be in the 2 stars range. Maybe children would like it better, but this o...more
Cynthia Egbert
Pratchett for youth! While I, admittedly, find the Johnny Maxwell trilogy somewhat depressing, it is still a fun read. And the kids will love it. This one involves Johnny and his ragtag bunch getting caught up in some time travel that throws them back to WWII. And there are all the inherent questions of how time travel would affect future events. There is much food for thought here and this would make a great summer read for parents and kids. It will foster some powerful discussion.

Some favorite...more
Mike
Apr 05, 2008 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Mike by: Vengence
Good book. I think this is my favorite of the three which seems to be the general concensus. Now I just need to see the TV movie they made of it and I'll be really happy with all likelyhood. Or I could just read it again and look for clues I missed the first time around. I have to say this is a fantastic time-travel book not just a fantastic kids' book. It makes sense, it explains things to people but it's not condesending. It doesn't treat the past as a great place where everyone was happy peop...more
Nate Rawdon
An addictive book from start to finish, I have not read any of the other Johnny Maxwell stories, and the novel is set up perfectly to introduce you to the characters without the confusion of having not previously read the other stories. The plot is fitted perfectly into a relatively compact book, though you are still able to connect with the characters. The overall story-line is compelling, and results in you feeling far from relieved when turning the final page.
Natalie
This book perfectly blends humour and history into a fantastic adventure, all about a young boy and a magical time traveling trolley. Simply put, an amazing novel by one of my favourite authors ever! the reason I only gave this book a 4 stars is that it has a bit of an anticlimactic ending. But it's exciting none the less.
I love the character of Mrs Tachyon, she's a really funny and bizarre character who actually turned out to be a really important character.
Rosie Powell
My brother's birthday is today, and as I was wrapping this book (and a few others) I thought '...I haven't read this since I was twelve...' So I'm reading it again. I love Mrs Tachyon. I really need to stop reading children's books. However, it's interesting to see how Pratchett's writing has advanced. His style is terribly similar, but the plots and characters are less complicated and far less clever. Anyway, I'm sure my brother is going to love it.
Ria
Brilliant novel, totally different from his usual style, Pratchett usually deals in comedic fantasy so this is a more modern, teenage novel.
Johnny helps an old bag lady Mrs. Tachyon and this leads to all sorts of magical adventures when they go back in time by touching a magic shopping trolley and they end up in 1941 during World war 2 trying to save Paradise road from being bombed, inventive, exciting and well worth reading.
Aaron Humphrey
Even after I got heavily into the Discworld books, it took me some time to follow up on Terry Pratchett's other books and series, and not until now have I actually gotten around to reading the third Johnny Maxwell book. I bought the first one, but read the second one from the library, which is also where I got this one.

I wasn't really planning on staying up late to finish the book on the same day I started it, but it happened.
Neil
Johnny's friends are my favorite part about this book. They play a large role in all the books but it's a bit more prominent in this one. They stand out because they are so ordinary. They're sort of the friends from next door who can't seem to figure themselves out but find comfort in their mutual awkwardness. Oh, and they go back in time and generally make a mess of things but learn some important life lessons along the way. Good stuff.
Ryan Mishap
Time travel the Pratchett way, and, as always, quite enjoyable to read. I'm marking down a star here because, as a trilogy, this lacks cohesion, an arc, or a satisfying conclusion. The story contained herein is concluded well, but not the so-called trilogy. I wonder if he never intended there to be a trilogy, but decided not to write anymore Johnny books, so the labeled got slapped on.
Miguel Ángel Vilela
Feb 05, 2011 Miguel Ángel Vilela rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone :)
Recommended to Miguel Ángel by: Stohelit
Its end blew me away, what else can I say? I enjoyed every paragraph of it. This is the only Pratchett book my wife has read, which was considered "an interesting approach to introducing someone to Pratchett's books" by my best-friend Stohelit, who introduced me to Pratchett's books.

BTW, the BBC mini-series based on it was not bad at all.
Kjerstin
I didn't find the story as potentially gripping as I thought the author meant for it to be, but I loved the unique characters and literature. (:
I definitely wouldn't recommend it, or say it's absolutely AMAZING, but if you've got nothing else to do.....
Sandra
Liked this a lot better than Only You Can Save Mankind. But then, I'm somehow partial to books dealing with time. Haven't read the second book in the trilogy though :/ it's annoying when this happens but at least these books can stand alone.
Melanie
I liked it, but it was almost too slick. The first two in this series were clever and funny, but also a little bit different from Pratchett's Discworld series. This one felt exactly like a Discworld book, which I thought was a little bit too bad. I wonder if Pratchett ever feels trapped by Discworld...
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Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell, #3)
Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell, #3)
Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell, #3)
Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell, #3)
Johnny and the Bomb (Johnny Maxwell, #3)

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Sir Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel,...more
More about Terry Pratchett...
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1) Mort (Discworld, #4) Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8) Night Watch (Discworld, #29)

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