The Rope and Other Stories

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The Rope: very good but a slightly disappointing ending. - Rated
The Rope Review by Georgia Kersh (age 10)

Genre: realistic.

This short story is about a boy and his sister who go and stay with their gran. Near their gran's house is a river. There is nothing special about the river: it's not fast-flowing or deep, it is not that wide and the water is quite clean. The only special thing about it is the rope.

You might think a rope; what is so good about a rope? Well, this rope is tied to a tall tree and swings from one side of the river to the other.

Now, the boy in this story reckons it used to be a hangman's rope, and is certain he doesn't want a go, but his younger sister Shirley (who thinks she takes after her gran being a tom-boy) is desperate to have a go. So it is planned they are going to the rope this afernoon. This morning they are going to the newsagents.

In the newagents Shirley and her brother meet a boy named Ginger who asks to meet them by the rope.

When they get to the top sure enough there Ginger is on the other side with a group of friends. He gets the rope and swings over to their side. There he shows them how to swing, how you have to push off the edge with your feet. Shirley went first. She was very good. Even Ginger's friends seemed impressed. Next it was her brother's turn. He walked back holding on to the rope and ran up to the edge, pushed off and, I'm not going to tell you - you'll have to read the book.

I thought this book was very good because it has a lot of suspense but Philippa Pearce could have made the ending slightly better as the beginning of the story had a brilliant atmosphere.

This story is timeless. It is aimed at the more advanced 8 year old reader, the average 9 year old, and all 10 and 11 year olds and 12 and 13 year olds who don't mind reading books with good plots but are quite easy.