English Department
Winner of the Guardian Young Critics competition
Congratulations to R. Jethwa in Year 9 who has recently won a national competition. His review of 'The Knife that Killed me' by Anthony McGowan was selected as one of the winning entries in the 2008 Guardian Young Critics Competition.
Click here to view 'The Knife that killed me.' R. Jethwa's winning entry in full
R Jethwa: a winner in the 2008 Guardian Young Critics Competition
R. Jethwa being congratulated by the Headteacher
R. Jethwa with his form tutor, Mr. D. Bunce and English teacher, Mr. F Guerra
The Review...
"I liked the novel “The Knife That Killed Me” I thought it was a brilliant book. The story line, the descriptions of the knife’s position between every chapter; they were great. The author Anthony McGowan really did a fantastic job on this. I liked the humour throughout this book, especially the first chapter
The knife that killed me was a special knife. Its blade was inscribed with magical runes from a lost language, and the metal glimmered with a thousand colours, iridescent as a peacock’s tail or the slick of petrol on a puddle”.
I also liked the fact that Anthony McGowan began describing the knife as if it was made inside a legend "It was made from a meteorite that had plunged to Earth after a journey of a hundred million miles." The first chapter is definitely my favourite part.
The twist at the end was also a great feat of Mr. McGowan’s imagination; I did not see that coming considering that the knife had been paused frame by frame throughout the book, ending up in Paul murdering Shane. In my opinion this is a well-rounded book and I would definitely recommend this page-turner to any secondary school child."
