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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2007, 432 pages
Paperback:
Sep 2008, 432 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Out of the past, another Tamar emerges, a man involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland half a century before. His story is one of passionate love, jealousy, and tragedy set against the daily fear and casual horror of the Second World War -- and unraveling it is about to transform Tamar’s life forever.
From acclaimed British sensation Mal Peet comes a masterful story of adventure, love, secrets, and betrayal in time of war, both past and present.
The air shook; you could feel it. And the noise was unbelievable. It is probable that humans had never heard anything like it, since it was perhaps the sound of the planet giving birth to its mountains, of raw young continents grating together. In the fields of southern England, animals panicked and continued to panic because the noise would not stop. At a stables in Buckinghamshire, every horse kicked out the door of its stall and bolted. Near Mildenhall, in Suffolk, a line of military vehicles came to a halt, and men tumbled out of the trucks to stare at the sky. A doctor, driving with his head out of the window to look upwards, ran into the back of the convoy and was killed instantly.
It was Sunday 17th September, the middle of the morning. People were in church. The pulsing downward beat of the noise overwhelmed their hymns. Choirs gave up. In Westminster Abbey the vast sound of the organ was drowned by it. Men, women, and children went into the streets and gazed up, ...
Tamar is an wonderful meld of fact and fiction. Based in Second World War Holland, it is an amazing tale of romance, espionage and betrayal. Tamar keeps you second guessing what is happening until the end. Tamar makes you feel as if you are in the Second World War, experiencing the horrors of raids and rationing. Overall Tamar is an astounding book. It also made me really think about the arguments and counter arguments for each situation. I would recommend it to people above the age of 12. - Thomas (aged 14)...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
About the Author
Keeper, Mal Peet's debut
novel for teens was published in
October 2003; it won the
Branford Boase Award and a
Nestlé Children's Book Award.
Tamar is his second book for
teens. It won the Carnegie
Medal* shortly after being
published in the UK in 2005, and
has recently been released in
the USA. His third book, The
Penalty, a follow up to
Keeper, was published in the
UK in 2006 and in the USA last
month (Aug 2007).
After university, Peet tried to
teach but "quit and went on
...
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