| The Indian In The Cupboard Essay, Research Paper
The Indian in the Cupboard
For this month s book report I read a book called The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks. This book was about a boy named Omri and his small Indian toy.
For Omri s birthday he received a small Indian toy from a friend and a small cupboard from his brother. Omri put his Indian in the cupboard and to his surprise when he opened the cupboard the Indian toy had come to life.
Omri has to keep his Indian a secret for fear of an adult finding out. When Omri told his friend Patrick about the toy, Patrick wanted his own. Omri thought it was a bad idea but brought the toy to life anyway. When Omri brought Patrick s cowboy toy to life, Patrick was very excited, but Omri was afraid he didn t know that they were real people. Omri decided he would keep them both at his house. Patrick did not like this idea but agreed only if Omri would bring the cowboy and Indian to school the next day.
Then all the trouble started. Patrick and Omri were called into the headmaster s office and the headmaster threatened to call Patrick s father if he didn t tell him what was going on. Patrick was so afraid that he showed the headmaster the Indian and the other toy. Luckily the headmaster thought he was seeing things and so he went home.
Omri decided that the Indian was too much trouble and that he should put them into plastic again. So Omri locked the Indian into the cupboard and when he opened it again, the toy was plastic again.
I thought this book had a very nice plot. The book was very interesting and exciting due to the fictitious plot. I think that a story about something that could never happen in real life always is more interesting and attracts more readers.
The author described things well in this book, but this book was a bit easy to read because she didn t use difficult words. This sometimes would not allow for you to know exactly how she meant for things to appear.
The setting of this story is in modern day England. The book did not really describe what time period it was supposed to be, but it seemed relatively modern. I think the book was set in a moderately sized town, because Omri walked to school everyday, and if it were a big city this would be an impossible task for a young boy. The setting wasn t very important to the book because most of the story was about people and not necessarily their environment.
There were many characters in this book. The main character in this book was Omri. Omri was a normal young boy who was interested in playing cowboys and Indians, and other games like that. His friend, Patrick, was interested in the same things, but Patrick wasn t as nice and he was a bit bossy and pushy. He forced Omri into making a live toy for him. Omri had a brother named Adiel. Adiel didn t like Omri that much and one time in the story he hid Omri s cupboard because he thought Omri had taken his football shorts. Another character in this book was the headmaster. The headmaster was a very strict person, but he wasn t unkind.
The author didn t describe the characters well enough, which made it hard to understand the character s personality, but I think that you could assume what a character was like by the way they were acting. I could relate to how Omri felt when he had his friend pressuring him into doing something he didn t want to do. The author described the character s feelings very well.
I think that the main conflict in this book was Omri trying to keep this Indian a secret. I think this because during the book it was always Omri s main goal; it was one reason why Omri didn t want to make a live toy for Patrick. In the end, Omri kept the Indian a secret, but he ended up giving up because he locked the Indian back in the cupboard and made him plastic again.
This was a good book, but it would ve been better if the characters were described better. It would also be better if the author had built up more tension. The climax came rather suddenly, so the author didn t get the amount of excitement that could have been reached.
One thing that I did like about the book was the ending. Even though there wasn t much tension leading to the climax, the ending was very appropriate. I thought that the author chose a very nice ending, because simply locking the Indian and the other live toy in the cupboard wasn t a sad ending. If the author had made the Indian get killed by the rat, it would ve been a very sad ending.
Another thing that I liked about this book was the plot. It was very exciting. It was very imaginative, and creative. Unlike most books, the things that happened in this book could never happen in real life.
In conclusion, I think this was a good book, but it wasn t difficult enough. The plot was very interesting and exciting and it was hard to put the book down. I wish that this book had been a bit longer because the author seemed to rush the plot a bit too much. Despite that, this was a very good book and I would recommend it to other people to read. I think this book is appropriate for ages 9-12.
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