Gorgy, Matthew

Book Review #1

November 1, 2016

English, Period 4 

The Great Fire

 Jim Murphy

 Non-Fiction

144 pages

 Newberry Medal

           The novel, The Great Fire, by Jim Murphy, is about a fire that happened in Chicago. The

fire started at the O’Learys’ barn. Their neighbor Pegleg was the first person to notice the fire and ran inside the barn to save the animals and to warn the O’Learys’ that their barn was on fire. The O’Learys’ other neighbor William ran to the drug store to turn on the fire alarm. But the owner of the drug store did not allow him to because he said all the fire trucks had left to another fire. The owner of the drug store said that he turned on the alarm after William left, but no alarm was recorded at the fire department. The fire started spreading through the neighborhood destroying everything.  The firefighters got the location of the fire and when they arrived it was the wrong location, and this kept happening. When the firefighters arrived to the right location the firefighters were exhausted from all the fires in the last couple of weeks. Because the firefighters were tired the did not have enough energy to stop the fire from spreading anymore. The fire was now spreading to North and East of Chicago. The fire grew so big the fire fighters could not put out the fire in the parts of the city that were already burnt. As the fire kept spreading it started to rain which gave everyone hope that the fire would go out. By the morning the fire that was destroying the city was out. The Chicago fire killed three hundred people. The people of the city got very mad at the O’Learys for starting the fire. In fear that people will kill them for starting the fire the O’learys left Chicago.

            Some good things I liked in the great fire was the action and the hope. An example of action in the book was when the fire was rampaging down the streets and the fire fighters were too tired to stop it from spreading to the rest of the city. An example of hope in this book is when it started raining and the people had hope the fire would go out. Some things I did not like in this book was the loss and fear. An example of loss in the book is people losing their houses and their lives. An example of fear is when the fire fighters could not stop the fire from spreading through the city. Another example of fear in the book is when the O’Learys left Chicago in fear that they were going to be killed. I liked the end of the book because the fire eventually goes out and there is no more loss or fear. I would recommend this book because of the action and hope. I would also recommend this because even if you don’t like action or hope it is an entertaining story to read.