High pavement blues door Bernard Ashley

2. The reason why I chose this book When I went to the library, to search a book for this report, I really had no idea what kind of book I would search. So I just went looking at all the English books with a red spot on their side, which are available in the library. The most of those English books, are old ones. And when I say old, I mean books with a grey image, brown coloured pages and a dusty smell. ‘High Pavement Blues’ was the first book, which looked a little bit more new and cheerful to me. Despite that the book is written almost twenty years ago. And when I read the backside of the book, I thought it would be something for me. Cause the main person of the book, Kevin, is about my age. By the way, in my opinion the story takes place in London, because Kevin works on the Thames Reach Market. I went to London on holiday a few months ago, so now I wonder what the book is all about. 3. The plot of the story The story is about Kevin Kendall, a teenagerboy. Weekdays he goes to school, but in the weekend, he works on the Thames Reach Market. Family Kendall has a stand, where they sell all kinds of lamps and lights. And Saturdays, it’s Kevin’s turn to make money in selling the lamps. Although he doesn’t like it. It’s not getting up at six every Saturday morning, but family Cox on the stall next door who make his life a misery. The Coxes also have a stand where they sell lambs and lights, and so they are a competition to family Kendall. The Coxes under which especially Alfie Cox, the oldest of the family who sells on the market, are trying to do everything to win de competition from Kevin and to let his family go bankrupt with their lamps. In the beginning, it’s just a fair play. Alfie tries to attract a lot of people by putting a larger assortment at one’s disposal and to reduce many prices of his products. But it doesn’t help enough. Kevin still gets customers, even when they are not as much as Cox’ customers. For Alfie and the other members of the Cox family, it still isn’t what they want. Next to Alfie Cox’ attempts to attract a lot of customers, he intimidates Kevin, by disparaging and bullying him. The Coxes have an interest in family Kendall quits selling their lamps on the market, because in that case, family Cox lay claim to their licence for having a stand on the market. That’s the most important reason for the Coxes to let Kevin’s stand go bankrupt. When the feud threatens to become a full-scale war, Kevin and his mum fight back and his new girlfriend Wendy joins them. They offer resistance, but it might not be enough. Kevin thinks there’s only one person who can really sort things out. That’s his dad, Bill Kendall, who left home two years before. And so he sets out to find him. That means the time that he’s busy with their stand, gets less. But he succeeds to find his dad, and they continue the battle against the Coxes. Finally they conquer the competition. It’s not just that they’re making more money than the Coxes, family Cox even goes bankrupt. They get arrested by the police for charged with fraud. Kevin’s father and mother come together again, and that’s how the story knows a happy end.
4. What is the climax of the story? The climax of this story, is on a Saturday when Kevin gets into a really big fight with Alfie. That day, which is about in the middle of the story, Alfie is bullying Kevin all the time and he ridicules him. The customers laugh at Alfie’s jokes, which is very painful for Kevin. After that day, he realizes something has to be done to save the stand of family Kendall. He knows his father would be the solution, and that’s why he goes searching him. When he founds his father, the stand turned out to progress again, and so the story has a happy end. So actually, the story knows two climaxes. The moment when Kevin starts to search his father, and the moment when he finally founds him. 5. The meaning of the title. The title refers to the place of the market where the family Kendall’s stall was standing. It was called ‘High Pavement’, just a name. I don’t really know to what meaning the name refers to. The word ‘Blues’ has probably to do with the fact that it didn’t go really good with the stand of family Kendall. A Dutch word for ‘blues’ is ‘in de put zitten’. That’s why. 6. The main characters. - The main person in the book is Kevin Kendall. Kevin is a quite unobtrusive person. When Alfie Cox bullies him, for example, he doesn’t retort. Next to that, he hasn’t really got the guts to handle such things. But he’s a very nice boy, he’s friendly to the most people. Kevin is a round character. In the first part of the story, he doesn’t retort everything Alfie says to him, because he’s afraid of him probably. When Kevin’s father returns, he learns Kevin to be more courageous. - Alfie Cox is the member of the Cox family, who is the most of the time on the market. He’s a very mean man. He’s friendly to his customers, but that’s appearance. His friendly behaviour applies only to attract customers, to others, especially to Kevin, he isn’t friendly at all. He talks very big, but that dissapeares as soon as Kevin’s father turned back home. Alfie is a flat character, I think. That’s because every Saturday when Kevin is going to work at the market, Alfie will certainly bully him. That’s a thing he does every week, so you can expect him to do so. That makes him pretty predictable. - Bill Kendall is Kevin’s dad. He’s a pretty self-assured man. He supports his son a lot. He doesn’t want his son to have fail of failure, and he cheers Kevin up. Bill is a strong man, and he looks not te be afraid of anything. He doesn’t talk as big as Alfie, but he retorts to every bad thing that Alfie say towards family Kendall. Bill Kendall is a round character. He goes through a development in the story. Until Kevin finds him, he kept a distance from his family. Bill left Kevin and his mother in the lurch. When Kevin finds him, he succeeds to convince his father about the fact the they really need Bill. From then on, Bill showed up in the family again, and the happiness returned among the family Kendall. 7. The theme of the novel. I don’t really know how to describe the theme of this novel. Perhaps it’s a little kind of adventure. When some people make your life a misery, every week again, you should try to work those problems out. If you aren’t able to do it yourself, you should search for help. And you should get that help from those persons you’re spending the most time of your life with. Keeping hope for a good end is important for your motivation. 8. A. The setting of the book. The biggest part of the story takes place on the High Pavement, a streetpart of the Thames Reach Market. Next to that, the weekdays take place in the house of family Kendall, where Kevin thinks a lot about his life, the stand and his father. The story takes place in London, England. I gather that from the fact that in the book is been spoken about the ‘Thames Reach Market’, along the river the Thames in London. By the way, they’re talking about ‘the big city’. Family Kendall are lower class people. Not that they are poor, but they are more poor than rich. Kevin usually goes to school, and Saturdays he works on the market. His mother is a housewife, and his father lives from an alimony before Kevin found him. I don’t know if they believe in something, the writer didn’t tell about that. The story takes place in – I think – the 80’s. Because the story seems to be from not a long time ago, and it’s written in 1983.
G. What type of work is it? - Hate; Because of the relationship between family Kendall and family Cox. However the hate is moreover from the Coxes against family Kendall, not from family Kendall against the Coxes. - Love; Kevin really misses his father, and with his mother he has a very close relationship. - Tragic; Later in the story, the family and their stand are doing fine, but especially in the beginning Kevin and his mother have been through a lot of misery. 9. Personal experience. - The second scene in the book. It’s the first time in the story that Kevin goes to the market, and on his arrival, Alfie names Kevin ‘The Saturday Brat’. This scene strikes me the most, because I didn’t expect Alfie to be so an unfriendly person in the beginning of the story. - Kevin reminds me of a boy I know. I don’t say his name, that would be a little insult to that boy. But the person I’m talking about is unobtrusive too, I think. Just like Kevin. He should stand up more for his rights, which he doesn’t. - All the moments when Kevin was thinking of his father, who he misses. It’s very hard to miss someone you love. In my own life, there isn’t anybody I love who left home, but there is someone I love who died four yaers ago. That’s my grandfather, I had a very good relationship with him. It’s not exactly the same, but that feeling might be almost the same. 10. My opinion. The book wasn’t boring to read, but it wasn’t really nice either. The interesting part of the story was to read how a simple family as family Kendall lives, because they aren’t rich at all. Kevin’s mother also misses the love of her husband, and she isn’t happy at all. Not til Kevin’s father returned. Those things were interesting to me, but that’s not all. The story is quite listless, and that’s a little bit a pity. Because, I like speed, action and spectacular happenings. Without those things, it’s always al little boring. It wasn’t really difficult to read to book. I needed a weekend and four evenings to finish it. The used language for the story wasn’t really hard or complicated, so I didn’t need to use a dictionary every time. The next time I need to find a book, I’ll consider more about what kind of book to read. I’ll probably try to find a more famous book then, from which I know it will be interesting for sure.