74. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

On an unnamed island off the New Zealand coast, turmoil arrives in the early 1990s. Government troops descend on the island, and fighting between the government and local rebels soon occurs. Matilda Laimo, a 13-year-old girl, is caught up in the struggle and chaos. The only remaining white person, a man named Mr. Watts who is married to a native woman, decides to open a school for the remaining children of the island. Mr. Watts has never taught school before and decides that the course work will be reading aloud his favorite novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Matilda becomes entranced with the life of Pip in Victorian England and the role imagination can have in a person’s life. As the island violence intensifies, Matilda must choose whether she should remain on the island, or flee to Australia, where her father is working.

This novel starts off very quietly, with most of the focus on Mr. Watts starting the island school and how the children react to reading Dickens. It quickly takes a very different turn when Mr. Watts takes on the persona of Pip and must tell his own “story” to save his life. The end is truly heartbreaking and very unexpected, but somehow seems to fit in to the novel. This is a novel of survival, escapism, and the power of the written word.