Teacher's Dead

I am not the target market for this book so please bear that in mind when reading my review.This author was interviewed on the radio about this book so I bought it for my daughter. She wasn't really interested (not a reader!!) so I thought I would try it for myself.The writing is very direct and there is little pretence with any side plots. Both understandable due to the size of the book and the target audience.The story deals with a mindless knife crime and how the people involved come to terms with it.Jackson Jones is very believeable as a character as are many of the other teenagers, although I wasn't quite so convinced about the adults in the books, they all seemed too good to be true.Knife crime is tackled head on in a way which, I think, would engage teenagers but I'm not sure that the type of teenagers to get involved in knife crime would be likely to read this book.Interesting way of starting discussion about an increasing problem.

I bought this for my (mature) 12 year old son who is a big fan of Benjamin Zephaniah books; And in his words through the book you have opinions of the characters that take more shape by the end if it. He would recommend this for teens or a PG rating!

Fiction written in a simplistic but very believable way! When you read in the papers about senseless acts of violence, you shake your head and wonder what on earth could possess a human being to act in such a way towards another human being. This story is that wondering with a teenage slant on it. It is all too easy to blame the parents for the young adult's actions but this book shows they are affected just as much as the family of the murder victim.A good read - one I recommended to my book club!

A brilliant read. I teach in a behaviour provision for boys and started this with one of our difficult pupils the other day. He sat for 25 minutes listening intently (which is unheard of). The subject matter is relevant to today's teens and the language is highly accessible, making it non-threatening for reluctant readers.I would recommend this highly!

Oh, how I wanted to like this. After all, it's not about a boy wizard... and it makes a semi-decent stab (pun vaguely intended) at locating itself in a world that's recognisable to its readership... and it's by Benjamin Zephaniah, an unfailingly decent and upstanding chap.Alas... it's really not up to much. While the intention is laudable, characterisation is desperately thin, the plot equally threadbare, the 'twist' virtually non-existent... and the dialogue... ooooh, the dialogue, given that it was written by a poet, is stiff and unnatural beyond redemption. I suspect that BZ might have had reluctant/lower ability readers in mind... but specialist publishers (and, more importantly, *editors*) like the good folk at Barrington Stoke manage to combine linguistic accessibility *and* brevity *and* pace *and* grittiness *and* realism... which this, unfortunately, only ever hints at.So... consider my 3* rating a generous one, for attempting a novel that aspires to do a crossover between 'The Curious Incident...' and 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'... but falls at pretty much all the hurdles in between.

This book was very interesting about a boy who sees a murder and spends the rest of the book trying to figure out who did it. The young boy is very intelligent and bright reminded me of a young columbo, the story is based in realism and has real issues, I have read two other books by this writer and enjoy his material

It was a very on edge book, some times I drifted out of the book and got slightly bored, but as I kept turning the pages and kept going, I got interested again. Great book. I sjouke do thoroughly

I thought this book was a real eye opener to how people think and how they are treated. It shows that seeing is not believing ...believing is seeing. I have rated this book 5 stars because I will definitely read it again and will share with other people.