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The Giant-Slayer
by
Iain Lawrence (Goodreads Author)
A girl’s imagination transports polio-afflicted kids into a fantastic world.
The spring of 1955 tests Laurie Valentine’s gifts as a storyteller. After her friend Dickie contracts polio and finds himself confined to an iron lung, Laurie visits him in the hospital. There she meets Carolyn and Chip, two other kids trapped inside the breathing machines. Laurie’s first impulse i...more
The spring of 1955 tests Laurie Valentine’s gifts as a storyteller. After her friend Dickie contracts polio and finds himself confined to an iron lung, Laurie visits him in the hospital. There she meets Carolyn and Chip, two other kids trapped inside the breathing machines. Laurie’s first impulse i...more
Library Binding, 304 pages
Published
November 10th 2009
by Random House Children's Books
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Reviewed by Nicola Dufficy
In 1955, Laurie Valentine’s only friend Dickie is stricken with polio, a crippling disease affecting many children. In order to cheer up Dickie and the other patients in his hospital ward, she begins to tell a story about a giant-slayer named Jimmy. Soon, each of the children begins to unleash their imaginations, taking turns as narrator and changing not only the lives of those in the story, but their own.
The strength of this novel is undoubtedly...more
In 1955, Laurie Valentine’s only friend Dickie is stricken with polio, a crippling disease affecting many children. In order to cheer up Dickie and the other patients in his hospital ward, she begins to tell a story about a giant-slayer named Jimmy. Soon, each of the children begins to unleash their imaginations, taking turns as narrator and changing not only the lives of those in the story, but their own.
The strength of this novel is undoubtedly...more
There is a reason that fantasy is such a popular genre: it allows the reader to escape from what may be a grim reality into a world where the laws of gravity can be defied, where justice prevails with the flick of a wand or the flight of an arrow, and the scenery is usually amazing. In The Giant-Slayer, we are immersed in both the sobering reality of a polio ward in the 1950's and a wonderous, fairy-tale land with no name, where a giant named Collosso who terrorizes the populace and a boy who ...more
Absorbing writing transports the reader into this story within a story. Eleven-year-old Laurie Valentine is coming of age in the 1950s during the height of the polio epidemic in America. She lives a rather lonely life, as she is restricted from many public spaces by her concerned father, though she enjoys one friendship with a boy named Dickie Espinosa. Dickie is struck with the paralyzing disease, and despite her father’s forbidding, Laurie decides to visit him at the hospital. Laurie finds...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This was another enjoyable read. The premise, a girl visiting a polio ward back in the 50's and telling a tale to the kids living in the ward and providing hope is nice and heartwarming. (Although nice & heartwarming can also be a little boring.) I thought the story was interesting and really loved how the kids took to the story and brought it to life. I was never bored, but didn't always connect with the characters because their world was so alien to me.
What I really wanted was a...more
What I really wanted was a...more
This is truly an ode to the power of Story. Trapped and immobile as they are, these three very ill kids do not only listen intently - they put their entire souls into the story as it is told, dreaming about it, seeing themselves in various characters, and feeling as if the story might even parallel their own lives and fates. And when Laurie is unable to continue the story, the three even take up the tale and finish it themselves.
And the story Laurie tells? It's about a very small lad...more
And the story Laurie tells? It's about a very small lad...more
Summary: Laurie's best friend Dickie is stricken with polio and taken to live in a nearby hospital. Laurie has a bright imagination and the stories she weaves about Collosso and Jimmy the giant slayer helps Dickie and his fellow bedmates escape the sadness of their troubled lives.
Review: I enjoyed this book but it dragged on at times. The characters lacked development and the story of the giant slayer seemed to be a string of silly events. In the author's note, Lawrence even acknow...more
Review: I enjoyed this book but it dragged on at times. The characters lacked development and the story of the giant slayer seemed to be a string of silly events. In the author's note, Lawrence even acknow...more
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Lawrence has composed a beautifully written book that aptly creates two different worlds. The first, the 'real' world is a heart-wrenching account of children who are suffering from Polio, but are able to be brightened because one girl decides to be brave enough to show up every Saturday and narrate an ongoing story. The second world is the frame story, the fantasy tale that Laurie creates for the kids in the Polio ward, which feels equally as tangible as the first.
It soon becomes cl...more
It soon becomes cl...more
I had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up to read it. From the cover and title, one would expect a fantasy involving a giant, a unicorn, a gnome, and a dragon. However, the book opens telling you that it's 1955 and polio is rampant. What does polio have to do with all these mythical creatures?
Laurie is a young girl who's dad is pretty big with the March of Dimes. They are frantically searching for a cure for polio. Laurie spends her days with her Nanna (her mom died ...more
Laurie is a young girl who's dad is pretty big with the March of Dimes. They are frantically searching for a cure for polio. Laurie spends her days with her Nanna (her mom died ...more
Jackie
rated it
A story within a story is the tale of The Giant-Slayer. Laurie Valentine, mostly lonely without a mother and a workaholic father, passes her time with fantastical stories, maps, and legends. But, one day Dickie Espinosa moves into the neighborhood and the two become fast friends. The story takes place in the 50's when all parents were deathly afraid of polio.
Dickie's parents' fears become reality and Dickie is stricken with polio. At first, Laurie is afraid to visit him in the hospi...more
Dickie's parents' fears become reality and Dickie is stricken with polio. At first, Laurie is afraid to visit him in the hospi...more
Lori Valentine's world is permeated by Polio. Her mother died from it, her best friend has it, her father fundraises for a cure for it and her nanny is constantly fearful that she is going to contract it. Lori wants to visit her friend Dickie in the polio ward, but her father forbids it out of fear that she may get sick. So, Lori does what any kid does when something is forbidden, she goes anyway. Dickie is in an iron lung in the respirator room of the Polio ward. There are two other children in...more
Two words - Unicorn hunter. It very hard to like a book in which a character that is part of the hero's team is an unicorn killer. It is not that I am a vegetarian but, Unicorns? That is the purest of all the animals. I have to agree with Col. Potter from MASH that there are some animals that you just not suppose to kill - horses, cats, dogs, and topping the list Unicorns. Not that this was my only problem with the book but, it was a huge problem to get over.
The story within the...more
The story within the...more
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2009. My husband Mike and I read this to each other yesterday--our third day of tropical storm Ida--and it was the perfect, old fashioned story to read during a squall. It's 1955, and motherless 11YO Laurie--whose dad works as a fund raiser for the March of Dimes--secretly befriends three sick, hospitalized children, all "polios" encased in iron lungs. She spins a terrific story about Jimmy the Giant Slayer to take their minds off their illness, and while ...more
Loved the book, didn't like the cover. Two stories are interwoven: Laurie in 1950s America when polio was a huge threat, and Jimmy the Giant-Slayer in a wonderful story Laurie creates to entertain her one friend, Dickie, confined to an iron lung. The plot pieces didn't line up as perfectly as I would've liked, and the ultimate destruction of the giant Colosso was a bit of a let-down (I wanted more of an "of course it must happen this way!" moment than the whole dragon blood thing activ...more
Set in 1955, when American children were first vaccinated against polio, The Giant-Slayer tells the story of several children who have contracted polio. Lawrence tells a story within a story in this book, as one of his child narrators, a visitor to a polio ward, weaves a story that mirrors real life (or life mirrors the story). I like Lawrence's writing overall--he often says things simply and well, though at times the allusions/themes in the book felt a little heavy-handed. The story within the...more
Treasa
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
chapter-books,
children,
fairytales,
fantasy,
grades-3-5,
historical-fiction,
middle-school
It's 1955. When Laurie's one and only friend, Dickie, gets polio, she disobeys her father and her nurse and goes to visit him at the hospital. There she meets two other children, Carolyn and Chip, who, like Dickie, are in iron lungs. Feeling awkward and not knowing what to talk about, Laurie begins to tell them a story, which features a giant-killer named Jimmy. Over the next few weeks, Laurie continues the story whenever she visits. Gradually her audience expands to other children in the polio ...more
The cover led me to believe this book was fantasy, but it's actually a story within a story. It's 1955 and Laurie's best friend Dickie contracts Polio and ends up in an iron lung. Laurie goes to visit him and tells him an elaborate tale of a terrible giant and a boy named Jimmy whose destiny it is to slay the giant. The characters in Laurie's story represent the real kids in the Polio ward, and the giant pretty obviously represents Polio.
The giant story is not really told like it wo...more
The giant story is not really told like it wo...more
Eleven-year old Laurie begins a tale to entertain her friend in an iron lung due to polio. The two other children in iron lungs and eventually others in the polio ward listen and add to the story. The story is a medieval fantasy about Jimmy the Giant-Slayer and his adventures. The book goes back and forth between the reality of the polio ward and the possibilities of the fantasy world. I enjoyed the way the tale includes elements of the children and how they see themselves in the characters ...more
Interesting story within a story. I found the tale about Jimmy, the giant-slayer intriguing. It's populated with characters and creatures from mythology, worn in to the tale as a child might do. The polio situation was also of great interest; few youngsters today will know anything about the disease and it's effect on those stricken by it and those who feared getting it.
I did not understand the adults in Laurie's life; her father's aloofness was not really explained. Mrs. Strawberry se...more
I did not understand the adults in Laurie's life; her father's aloofness was not really explained. Mrs. Strawberry se...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
It’s 1955 and everyone fears polio, a horrible disease that affects nerves and can lead to full or partial paralysis; a vaccine against it doesn’t yet exist. Laurie’s close friend and neighbor Dickie is suddenly struck with polio and must be hospitalized because he needs a ventilator (iron lung) to help him breathe. Laurie’s father forbids her to visit him because he’s afraid that she, too, will catch polio, but she visits him anyway. There, she meets another boy named Chip and an older girl ...more
My father's mother had polio, and that added a personal connection to the story somehow, although her ailment was never discussed. Laurie reminded me of my mother's descriptions of herself in many ways, and the father of her descriptions of her own father. My mother's father was "so busy with big ideas that he doesn't have time to think of little things." And Laurie, like my mother, though of herself as one of those "little things." Laurie's father was a fundraiser for the Ma...more
This was the perfect read for our snowy days where a good story offered comfort and escape. This is about how stories transform lives and the story within the story is taken on by several different characters who add their own "spin" and find their own ways to participate. The reader cares equally about the characters in both adventures, quite a feat and this is also a bit of historical fiction as polio is an important character (although the one treated with the heaviest hand).
Fabulous. Both stories, about Jimmy the giant-slayer with his friends on the Great North Road, and about Laurie with her friends in the polio ward of Bishop's Hospital, are captivating. Even before the children realize how much, their story and Jimmy's are intimately intertwined. This is a story about real life, where children imagine a world with flaws and challenges and imperfect heroes, and where happily-ever-afters are easily granted once you know what to wish for.
I sobbed through the last 100 pages of this book. Unreal, how wonderful on SO MANY levels it is. Historical fiction, fantasy, all these great links/connections between the two - and a solid douse of thank-God-my-kids-will-never-have-to-worry-about-polio. I think that this book should be required reading for every single preteen, so that they get a sense of how science can protect them, and how quickly knowledge can grow and change the world as we know it.
Did I happen to mention that I ...more
Did I happen to mention that I ...more
This is quite different from Iain Lawrence's other books I've read. The story is told on two levels - taking place in the early 1950's when the polio epidemic was in full force. Laurie's friend Dickie is stricken with the disease, and when she visits him in the hospital, she meets two other victims, also in iron lungs. She begins weaving a story about Jimmy, a giant slayer. I really liked this book, and I think both boys and girls will enjoy it.
This was a wonderful book set in 1955 during the big polio scare. A young girl visits polio victims at the local hospital who are confined to iron lung machines to keep them alive. She begins telling a story about a small boy who is destined to kill the terrible giant that has been terrorizing the land for years. The children come to realize that each of them is like one of the characters in the story. Great book.
I grabbed this book off the shelf and thought it would be an interesting read based on the brief synopsis in the back. I was delighted the whole way through. I enjoyed the fiction intertwined with non-fiction. The characters were believable and consistent throughout with a worthwhile story to tell. I felt uplifted and fulfilled at the end. It encouraged me to read more of his books.
Settings is the 1950s -in a polio ward .
for ages 10-15 years
Laurie, a young girl, visits her only friend, a younger boy who has polio. She starts to tell a fantasy story to Dicki and the other children in the iron lungs. They are all taken with laurie's imaginative story. They start to realize there is a resemblance and relevance between children and the characters in the story.
for ages 10-15 years
Laurie, a young girl, visits her only friend, a younger boy who has polio. She starts to tell a fantasy story to Dicki and the other children in the iron lungs. They are all taken with laurie's imaginative story. They start to realize there is a resemblance and relevance between children and the characters in the story.
Read it for school (Forest of Reading). Not bad, for a kid's book. Skimmed through some of the description in parts. Book is a bit all over the place for ideas, which is ok sometimes, but hard to stay interested. I think the end (last 1/4 of the book was a bit of let down. Not done as well as it could have been. Was an interesting read. (3.5)
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