A 1) The title of the book is : The boy in the bubble.
2) The author is Ian Strachan.

3) There are 173 pages in the book.

4) The book is published by Methuen Children's Books.


B 5) The story begins and ends in the village were Anne lives.

6) The story takes place at this time.

7) The story takes about 6 months.

8) The main character is Anne.
a) Her name is Anne Tagonist, she's 16 years old.
b) She's of medium height, she doesn't like the way she looks: she has blond hair and she hasn't got breasts, that's what she doesn't like.
c) She's a symphatic girl. She likes to help other people.

9) The most important minor characters in this book are:
Adam Simmonds, Mrs. Simmonds and Mel.
Adam is a boy who hasn't got an immune system, he suffers from SCID. He lives in a plastic tent to be protected from bacteria and diseases. He never has touched or hugged anyone.
Mrs. Simmonds is the mother of Adam. She takes care of him, she's always around to look after him.
Mel is the best friend of Anne, but also the opposite of her. She has nice hair, nice breasts, she knows every boy around and is very much interested in cars. Anne and Mel are in the same class. If one of them has a problem they always call or talk at school about it. They talk a lot wit each other, but don't do many things together.

10)
When Anne is walking home from school there are new people moving in a house in the street where Anne lives. The neighbours are a man and a woman. They've also got a boy. When Anne first sees him she's a bit shocked of his appearance. He acts strange. Anne compares him to a chimpanzee.
At school a teacher of Anne organised lessons at Adams places one day in the week. After the second lesson Adam invites Anne to come after school. When she's at his places his mother wouldn't let Anne in, because Adam was very tired. She also tells her that he suffers from SCID.
At school Anne must make a project. She decides to do it about SCID. She asks Adam to help her. He helps her, for his help he wants Anne to tell him how the world is outside his tent.
After a few weeks Adam asks Anne to be his girlfriend. Anne agrees. For his birthday next week she wants to give him a special present. He always 'complains' that he never comes out of the house, so Anne likes to take him to the cinema. She had spoken to the manager of the cinema. First he said he couldn't do anything for her, but after a while he made up his mind and suggests that Adam can come when the preview is held for the press. The press could take some pictures of Adam, which was some publicity for the cinema and than Anne wouldn't have to pay anything.
At Adam's birthday he was very exited about going to the cinema, but when the press took a lot of pictures of him, he didn't like it anymore.
The day after, there were pictures of Adam in all the newspapers. Anne was ashamed, until Adam phoned her that night. He told her that he really had liked going to the cinema and he enjoyed the publicity now that there were pictures of him in the newspapers.


Because of al the attention Adam gets, he forgot Anne a little bit.
When he realises that, he asks her to do things for her he can't do. Like walking barefoot in wet grass. She must tell him how that feels. He asks her also to do things she hadn't done herself either, like riding horse in gallop.
Adam thinks it's better for Anne if she's going out with an other boy. Because he's locked up and he doesn't want her to be locked up ?s she always stays with him. So Anne rings Mel and Mel gets Anne a boy to go out with. Anne goes out with him (Tony, an ex boyfriend of Mel) and stays with him for a long while. After a time Anne breaks up, because Tony always talks about Mel and Anne always talks about Adam.
Anne hasn't seen Adam for a while, so she decides to ring him up. When he doesn't answer the phone, she goes to his house. Adam isn't at home, he's in the hospital. A Japanese doctor thinks he can help Adam to get out of the tent, by getting him a bone-marrow transplantation. He has to get it from somebody who has almost the same blood-marrow. After some people are tested (Anne was also tested) they got someone who was really close with the blood-marrow of Adam.
The operation of Adam had succeeded. But suddenly he gets a secondary complication. He has problems keeping down food, developed a fever, later on he also developed chronic diarrhoea and finally dehydration. Adam is allowed to leave his tent, although it isn't completely safe yet. Suddenly bad news arrives: he's going to die. He only has a few days to go. The week before Christmas he dies.
A funeral is hold for Adam.
After a week Anne visit Mrs. Simmonds. She looks very bad, because she nearly hasn't got any sleep after Adam died.
One day Anne gets a letter from the doctor whom also was by the operation of Adam. He tells about a girl who has leukaemia and needs a blood-marrow. He still had the blood-marrow of Anne when she was tested for Adam. Her blood-marrow is the best for the girl who has leukaemia. Anne co-operates and the girl is doing fine.
After a while Anne got a letter from Adam, which his mother had found. He tells her she was the best thing that ever happened to him, but she has to go on with her live.
Before the operation of Adam he send her a red balloon, after she read the letter she sees the balloon. She takes the balloon right up to the top of the steep hill in the centre and releases the string. That was her way of saying goodbye to Adam and for the first time after his death she cried her eyes out.

11) The genre of the book is: being in love, friendship and death.

12) I think that the title of the book is a pretty good name for it. The boy in the book lives in a plastic tent. He didn't live in a bubble, but with some fantasy you could name it a bubble.

13) I chose the pages 171 and 173. I liked them most, because on page 171 is a letter from Adam to Anne to say that she must go on with her live now he has gone. On page 173 Anne says goodbye on her own way, by letting up the balloon Adam send her before the operation. She hadn't cried after Adam died until then. It was an emotional part.

14) This book had a subject I never ridden about. I really liked that. The most books are about love, school or things you see or hear every day.
They are mostly very predictable. But SCID you don't see every day. I hadn't heard of it before. A young person who has to live like Adam because he is ill, and who dies at the end was something you normally don't think of at this age. I don't know anyone so young who is that ill, who has to live so different because of his illness.
It was an interesting story. I only didn't like Adam's death. I hoped he came out of the tent and he could go into the world, without worrying of getting sick from bacteria. Mostly I like books (or films) with a happy end. But in real live it doesn't always gets that way, so it is normal that in books it also doesn't turn out well. You learn from those stories. I felt sorry for Anne and Mrs. Simmonds. They were the people who were with him the most of the time.
The book wasn't only sad. The most of the book was a story about an ordinary girl who falls in love with a boy in a plastic tent. The most of the time they had fun together.
The story wasn't exciting, but very fascinating to me.
Sometimes I had difficulty in understanding the English words, but when I read further I understood what was meant.


15) The mark I would give the book is an 8. I really enjoyed reading the book. I would advise other people to read the book too. It was nice to read and different from all the other books I ever have ridden.
It was good to read about young people who are very sick to realise that they also have feelings like 'normal' people. And it is also good to realise that you can die young. I realise how lucky I am with my healthy live. That I can go everywhere, can sport, go to school.
I think it's interesting to know how people who suffer from SCID live. I don't know if in real live people live like Adam, but that is because I never heard from that disease before. But there are young people who can't live normal life because they are sick or disabled in some other way.