Typical teenagers today are expected to learn the vital skills they need to survive in the world. John Marsden’s thrilling novel, Tomorrow, When the War Began explores the vital skills a group of typical rural teenagers need to learn when they become involved in war. They learn to make decisions and plot rebellions they may have never had to face.
They fight a battle not only against the enemy but to survive amongst each other. Homer Yannos, a once wild, crazy teenager is the most obviously changed character of them all. He develops into a cunning, brave leader who never ceases to amaze the other characters, especially Ellie, with his sudden change of attitude and how in touch he becomes with his emotions even the love he begins to feel for other characters. Homer was a generally a big, immature pain previous to the war, for fun, he would pull pranks on innocent bystanders and stir up girls up at school so they would call him names like “ sexist”.
Homer is portrayed as big, dark, about seventeen and Greek. In school he was a laid back character, he joked about his Greek heritage, one game he invented at school he called “ Greek Roulette” where he and his friends would go around the school running into windows with their heads John Marsden? s Tomorrow when the war began is a gripping work of fiction. The book deals with various themes, issues and attitudes that are present in our society throughout the medium of the novel, we learn that war is not only stupid but it is devastating for those who are involved. The issues in John Marsden’s masterpiece were very dramatic. Marsden’s masterpiece is about a small country town in the Eastern States of Australia, which gets invaded by a foreign force and starts ruling parts of Australia. This foreign force wants to take over Australia because of the wide open space which Australia has an their Country doesn? t.
They want to bring people from their country and give them a home each and manage a farm and have the Australians as slaves to them. Through Ellie’s eyes you find out information you never thought possible. The information you find out from Ellie is about what the group is going to do to try and stop this force and other various things like bringing live stock into their camp site In the novel ‘ Tomorrow when the war began’, courage is the central message. The WordWeb dictionary defines courage as ‘ a quality of spirit that enables you to face danger of pain without showing fear’.
This is exactly what John Marsden, the author, tried to make clear in the novel. The novel is about 7 teenagers that were forced to live in the bush because of the invaders that took over their country. Each of the characters came to a difficult time in the novel and to overcome that difficulty they needed courage. Two instances of showing courage were when they planned to blow up a bridge and when they had to save a friend by risking their own lives, The genre of the book “ Tomorrow When The War Began” by John Marsden is a narrative-novel. It is a suspenseful, mysterious and adventurous book.
PlotSeven teenagers, Ellie, Homer, Fi, Robyn, Lee, Corrie and Kevin go camping to a wild, uninhabited mountain area known as Hell, outside their home town. When they emerge a few days later, they find their town and country has been invaded and under the control of another country. They sneak into the town of Wirawee at night, they have the common sense to travel at night, to find almost all the people have been rounded up and imprisoned in the showground including their own family. Ellie, Kevin and Corrie were nearly trapped by soldiers, but escaped by blowing up a lawn mower
