So when we last left off on the “history” portion of our learning, we were just finishing our work on WWI and getting into the Interwar Years of the world. If you haven’t checked out this post already, I definitely suggest that you do so in order to have some context on the work we’ve been doing for history.
Our learning about the world’s history has been pretty chronological and we knew there was one big aspect in history that we hadn’t learned about yet… World War II. Although I could get into our learning about WWII, we actually have a much bigger project in store for the learning we’ve done, so I’ll definitely be going more into depth about that when the time comes.
Either way, to get better immersed into the reality of WWII, we were given a selection of books to read based on different aspects of WWII.
I chose Unbroken as it was actually recommended to me by some friends anyways so I figured that it was a good time to read it. So reading books is great and all but it’s not school if there isn’t work involved too!
To go with our books and our “top secret” project for that matter, we were told to write a book review for our selected novels. Anyways, here’s what I took away from my novel!
Unbroken: Lauren Hillenbrand
Lucas Ospino
April 15th, 2018
Everyone knows someone who might push things a little hard sometimes, someone who is “thrilled by the crashing of boundaries… untameable… uncommonly clever”. In essence, a trouble maker. It’s sometimes difficult to imagine what these people can become but would you generally expect them to turn out as an Olympic athlete? What about a well recognized WWII veteran? What about both?
In Laura Hillenbrand’s second non-fiction book, Unbroken tells the life story of Louis Silvie Zamperini, simply known as “Louie” throughout the book. In the first section of the book, readers get to learn a little more about what Louie was like in his earlier years. As a child, he was infamous in his town for being a daredevil, a thief, and overall just being mischievous. Louie had a gift for escaping and wasn’t discouraged easily. This translated into a natural gift for running in which Louie was encouraged by his older brother, Pete to start training for. Louie proved that he could train harder than anybody else and this endurance led him to qualifying for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Something interesting to note is that Louie had originally been training for shorter distance and although he wasn’t as successful in that, he found a gate with longer distance competitions. Sometimes, disappointment and obstacles can steer people in a direction they didn’t intend to go. This can be represented by Louie’s switch to long distance running and his ability to take on new situations and adapt to new challenges. These are traits that prove to be useful later on.
With the coming of WWII, Louie’s running career is put on pause as he enlists for the army. During an early mission, Louie was reported to be dead after a military plane crash in the Pacific Ocean. If anything, Louie is a man with unremarkable endurance as he managed to survive a plethora of ordeals during his 47 day journey on a life raft after the plane crash an during his time as a Japanese POW. Louie’s survival can mainly be credited through a combination of endurance, luck, and camaraderie with the other POWs, all of which are traits we see from his early childhood all the way to his late years. Throughout the book, readers also learn about Louie’s close friend, Russel Allen Phillips, or “Phil”, and his experiences during the war, most of which were quite similar to Louie’s experiences.
Author Lauren Hillenbrand tells Louie’s perspective on the war while in the meantime, paints an accurate backdrop on the WWII years. Through many interviews with veterans and their families from WWII and extensive research, Hillenbrand is able to give enough written context to immerse the reader into the whole world of Unbroken and WWIInot just Louie’s world. Personal experiences, sacrifices, and tragedies are all brought to life in this novel.
Unbroken is a story about human kind’s will to survive and to help other, whether it be other people or their country. On the other hand, it is also a story of human kind’s ability to cause pain and harm on others through deprivation, killing, and other acts of cruelty. In the end though, it’s a book about human nature and the sheer will people have to keep on going in life. When it all boils down, Unbroken is a fantastic and very informative read with a wide variety of characters who, all though may not ever be that critical to the story, definitely add depth to the story. Getting a firsthand look at some of the horrors that millions of soldiers in WWII had to go through in POW camps is eye-opening and this is definitely a must-read book for anyone that wants to learn more about the mindset of American soldiers in WWII and how they survived.
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