Title: Dead Boys’ Club
Author: Geoffrey Malone
Price: £6.99
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books
Number of Pages: 255

Dead Boys’ Club
“There were boys running towards him. His own age. Armed with rifles.”

Colonel Dada’s child army (God’s Freedom Army) attacks the village of Tshombe, in order to recruit some new soldiers. Sam Mbali, 12, is one of the new entrants in the army. Away from home and with no family near him, Sam gets infuriated and just longs for the day his father will come to rescue him from this army camp. Five thousand kilometres away, in Belgium, Mr. Jack Schratte and Jean Morrell plan on digging through a gold mine in search of top quality gold in Majunga, Africa. They decide to get help from the child soldiers to guard the mine, while they work on it. This way, they might even be able to catch Colonel Dada for good and release all those child soldiers, like Sam. With a plot focusing on child soldiers, Dead Boys’ Club by Geoffrey Malone is informative; educating those who choose to read the book, about world problems regarding child armies in places such as Africa and some parts of Asia, South America etc. The book is not too lengthy a narrative and it is an easy read, the plot is relatively straight and simple thus quite easy to follow. Concurrently the characterization and plot of the book is extremely interesting. The two slightly different stories that are simultaneously being told (child soldiers and gold mining) continue to engage the attention of the reader. The book is free of unnecessary repetition, which is a big positive of the book.

Despite the sensational plot; the book lacks some much needed detail. Therefore, at certain places it appears a bit sketchy for want of the necessary detail. It therefore becomes hard for the reader to make sense of the scene. I believe that description is an important feature that all novels ought to possess; unfortunately, this novel seems a bit devoid of this vital ingredient. Because of this it’s harder for the reader to have an emotional involvement with the characters or the plot anytime throughout the book. However, I recommend this book to all the children of our age group and hope they enjoy it as much as I did.