Reflections of I Am David

Holding the book in the hand for the first time, I was impressed by the expression of the boy on the cover. How unhappy he was! How gloomy his eyes are ! The boy aroused my interest and made me want to try the book, though I think the novel was just another ordinary type of book about concentration camp. After reading it, however, I was surprised at the arrangements of the plots in it. By reading through page and page, I found myself enjoying the book more and more and I am reluctant to put the book away until I finished it, a book which was combined with courage, faith, perseverance , pursuit of dreams.

David, a twelve-year-old boy, spent most of his life in the concentration camp. One day, one of the guards in the camp helped David escape from the camp and asked David to go north to Denmark in order to find a shelter. Though suspicious in his mind, David still took a chance and had a try. The unhappiness in the camp made David run away from the camp farther and farther. On his way to Denmark, David encountered a lot of challenges and was frequently stopped by various kinds of obstacles. But he also learned many things during the journey which definitely changed his life step by step.

What makes I Am David a successful and fantastic story is how the author arranged the plots. Instead of using multiple main characters, I Am David only focused on one, David. Through this kind of writing skill, the story prosperously gave prominence to David, and made David an impressing role. Reading the story, I could barely be distracted by other things in the novel but pay more attention to David because I could only follow one storyline. This kind literary technique, in my opinion, is truly appropriate for I Am David due to it being a sort of stories telling about escaping. Horror, intensity, scares, and exhaustion are all ingredients to the whole novel. With only the view of David, I can really feel all these emotions. Besides, only through this type of arrangement could I place myself into the story and have an adventure with David. The way this novel came out deeply impressed me. It not only made me enjoy in it, but also set a good model for novel settings.

Apart from the magical arrangement in the novel, another factor that made the book so fascinating is the way it described people. From the view of David, I felt how David felt through the description of each person. I could know David was suspicious with them and believed they are just a part of the concentration camp when David first met each of them. Also, with the portrayal of characters in the book, I could imagine how they looked like and how they felt in my mind clearly, which is just like playing a real movie. On the other hand, using the conversation of roles to portray David from indistinct to vivid is a word of art. From the words of the people, I could imagine how depressed and exhausted David was, how dull David's eyes were, and how David was lacking of joyfulness in his life. With these descriptions, I could almost come up a skinny and sorrowful boy in my mind, just like the one on the cover of the book. And thanks to all of these portrayals I could build up a lively world about the novel.

After enjoying the whole story, I closed the book without satisfaction. A literature combined with war history and journey really appeals to me. A story during the war time might sound miserable. But with an adventure embellished, the story turned out to be a colorful one. I nearly burst out my tears for I was deeply touched by David's courage and had a great respect for him. If I was David, would I overcome all the challenges and storms in the journey? Or I would just give up in the half way. The book I Am David taught me an important lesson—Where there is a will, there is a way.¬