Author: Karen Tayleur    Published: 2014 Series: David Mortimer Baxter

Genres: Comedy, Drama

By: Kien

“So, here’s the thing. I didn’t want to go to Rose Thornton’s house for dinner, so I pretended to be sick. But I wasn’t sick. And Mum found out. Now, mum’s so mad with me she’s thought up the worst punishment ever. One more lie and Boris is going to the pet shelter. So that’s it. I’m turning over a new leaf. But if Mum hates it when I lie, she’s really going to hate it when I start telling the truth.”

Once you start bending the truth it’s really hard to straighten it out again.

The book illustrates the consequences of bending the truth via the image of a boy – David Mortimore Baxter. He keeps telling lies and he can’t stop. His nearly next-door neighbour thinks David lies so much he must have a medical condition. Throughout each chapter, with his interesting adventures, we can see the author subtly showing the punishment that the main character – David had to face after telling lie. From that, we can learn that telling lie is not a good idea to fix the problem, and we can also understand that the honest truth is “knowing when to tell and when not to tell lies is very tricky.”

When I had just finished my librarian duty and was strolling around the library, I found this book. I picked it up and read briefly the description first and found it pretty interesting. As English is my second language, I started off by choosing a pretty easy book like this. From this book, I have learned a lot of useful words that I don’t usually think about when using English conversationally. From those new words, I can be more confident and start reading more young adult novels and other harder books. From my perspective, this book is suitable for any junior (Year 10 and below) to choose. Give it a shot because it is not a book with only text, but this book’s font made it more interesting, the images supported the story for young readers. I am grateful for giving this book a try!

The Truth Goodreads details here.