About The Author

  Charlie Higson is an author, actor, comedian, and writer.  He wrote the very popular "Young Bond" series which has sold millions of copies worldwide.  He began his zombie adventure series for teenagers in 2009 with "The Enemy" and 1 year later came out with "The Dead."  Charlie is a huge fan of horror movies and books and studied gothic literature in college.  He has 3 teenagers and he says they are his inspiration for these teenager based novels.  He currently lives in London, England.

  He was born on July 3rd, 1958 in Somerset, England.  Charlie formed the band the band The Higsons where he was the lead singer and they released 2 singles.  He stared in many television programs on BBC as an extra.  Charlie Higson is still writing good books for teens even today and is  a world known author.















This is a picture of Charlie Higson.

Analysis of a Piece of Text

 
  A paragraph of text from my book, "The Enemy" by Charlie Higson is on page 439 when the leader of the grown ups is trying to figure out who he is.  "Fat man.  Bald.  White vest with a a red cross on it.  He knew the words.  Saint George.  Then he smiled.  The man was him.  It was was... What was it?  A mirror?  A window?  Yes.  He was Saint George.  A crusader.  That made him happy.   To remember hard words like that.  He was Saint George.  This city belonged to him."(pg. 439)

  This text is at the very end of the book.  Obviously we know that this guy is not alive.  He is one of the millions of other brain dead grown ups who want to kill the children.  But this guy is different from the rest of the other grown ups.  He is more intelligent and is able to get other grown ups to follow him into battle.  This guy believes he is Saint George who was a was a soldier in the Roman army and later venerated as a Christian Martyr.  He was believed to be born in 303 A.D and was a great military general.  The guy must have died with the Saint George Red Cross shirt on so he thinks he is him.

  It is believed in the story that this guy was one of the last alive grown ups to turn into a zombie so his brain isn't as rotten and therefore he is more intelligent.  Earlier in the book his army lost a battle to Arran and the kids so he has now sworn to kill them all.  He looks in the mirror or what he thinks is a mirror and tells himself that he is Saint George,  a crusader and that this city is his.  I predict in the next book the kids will see him again but I think Saint George will be more prepared and kill all of the kids with his undead army.
















This is the cross of Saint George.

Zombies

  Many books, movies and T.V shows in the past couple of years have been about zombies.  For example my book "The Enemy", by Charlie Higson.  An outbreak of a disease turns mostly every person on the planet into a brain dead zombie that only wants meat.  Only children survived and must survive in this new harsh world where they adapt to survive, or act stupid and get themselves killed.  Another example is The Walking Dead, which is a T.V series on AMC following a character named Rick Grimes and his struggle with other survivors to survive.  It is kind of like a W plot that never seems to end.  The show is in its 4th season and many people Rick has loved have died and every time they think they have a breakthrough something bad happens which puts the hero back a step and somehow he will overcome that obstacle.

  In the new season, where Rick and many survivors are living in a prison where walkers or zombies are trying to break trough the fences every day.  New illnesses are making people sick inside the prison and when they die they turn into a walker and want to only kill and eat live meat.  Recently the prison was attacked and many people died, walkers almost knocked the fences down and many people are getting scared.

  They always seems like in science fiction stories it always take place in a post apocalyptic future where a disease killed most of the population and turned them into zombies where a hero and his friends struggle to survive and there is always other survivors that want each other dead and everyone struggles to survive.

This is a picture of the popular T.V show The Walking Dead.

Theme

  The theme of "The Enemy" by Charlie Higson is that you shouldn't trust people you don't know.  I think this is the theme because the kids at Waitrose were all by themselves living badly until a kid they have never met before asks them to leave everything behind to come to Buckingham Palace on what the kid says and from pictures.  They were promised a new safe life but when they get there the leader David seemed nice but he only wanted the Waitrose kids to fight for him so he can rule London.  They also don't get a lot of fun time and the food is terrible.  An example to support this is when David locks Blue and Maxie in the nursery and not letting them leave.  David locks them a
in the room and says, "When you see sense, you can join the others.  In the meantime, I'm taking charge of all your kids.  Good night."

  At first David seemed like a nice guy and promised a new safe life but was just a kid wanting power, and put Maxie and BLue (the leaders) in house arrest.  Another example is when Small Sam was taken in by Nick and Rachael in the subway tunnels.  Nick rescued him and they fed him but when Sam fell asleep he was handcuffed and locked in another car with other kids.  He assumed they wanted to eat him and fatten him up.

Final Thoughts

  After finishing my book I really liked it so I wanted to see if there was a second book in the series. It turns out there is like 4 more books in the series and I am looking forward to reading them.  My book was kind of sad throughout the whole story because you would learn about a a characters and what they did before the disaster and you got to know them.  Then in the next chapter they might end of dying like many important characters like Arran, Freak, Deak, Joel,  Rhiannon, Calum and Rose.  The book was full of plot twists and surprises.

  One example is when Arran died, another is that David is a tyrant and kept Maxie's people at the palace.  A very important example is when the girl Maxie saved told them that there are tons of other kids living around London surviving and it isn't just David.  The suspense of Achilleus winning the fight was really engrossing and I didn't want to stop reading.

  Overall I really liked the book and I now want to read the other books in the series.






This is another picture of the book "The Enemy" by Charlie Higson.

Update 4

  Well I finished the book.  The book was interesting the whole way through but the ending took me by surprise.  When we left off the fighters were helping David get control over the squatters.  But now they were all gathered together in a room at Buckingham Palace discussing a deal.  The squatters would agree to help them and let them farm in the park if, Achilleus and John would have a fair fight.  So that night in the courtyard Achilleus and John fought to the death with John's deadly 3 knifed spear and Achilleus's spear.  The whole fight Achilleus was losing when he was cut in the chest, the neck, the face and even part of his ear was cut off.

  John was bigger, but not as smart as Achilleus.  Eventually John's spear was down to 1 knife and Achilleus kept up a smooth rhythm of jabs at John but missed every time.  He was waiting until John let his guard down then he quickly attacked John fast and ferociously.  It happened so fast and the next moment John was on the ground pinned and pleaded for death but Achilleus didn't want to.  After the fight Achilleus had to get bandaged and his ear stitched back together.  Later Maxie and Blue were talking in the sick hall about leaving the Palace as David has taken charge.  They are then kept prisoner but Ollie escapes and they create a plan to escape.

  David left 2 guards at the door, but inside Maxie and Blue were learning the truth about David.  A girl who was badly attacked was in their telling them that there are many other groups of kids around London surviving.  She and many kids were living at the Natural History Museum where it was safe.  But David wouldn't let her go back.  So that night Ollie released the Royal family zombies into the Palace.  David and his guards would be so busy finding them that the Waitrose and Morrison's could sneak outside.  Achilleus and Lewis freed Blue and Maxie as they all left the Palace that night before David could stop them.

  Sam and the other kid escaped from Nick, who in the sunlight instantaneously had boils and burns on him as he turned into a pile of goop.  But they were lost and they thought they were going to die.  But 4 boys in armor saved them and led them to the Tower of London where 70 kids were living good inside the castle and protected by a moat from danger.

  The very last chapter of the book was weird as one grown up who was fat, had glasses and a St. George cross shirt was destroying cars and thinking to himself that he wouldn't lose another battle.  The kids would not beat him next time and thought that he was the mighty Saint George who was a great war general hundreds of years ago.  He riled up all his grown up army also.  I did some research on him and he is believed to be the last human that turned into a zombie and his brain might not be as rotten as the other grown ups because he wasn't affected as early as them.

This is the Tower of London where the boys who saved Sam are living.

Character Development

  Maxie:  At the beginning of my book Maxie was Arran's second in command.  Maxie is now the leader of the Waitrose kids but still doesn't have as much power as David does at the palace.  She used to be scared of the grown ups and scared of losing her friends but she is now not fearful and is angry at the grown ups for what they have done.  After Arran died somebody had to step up.  At first Maxie was scared to take command but Blue convinced her that everyone needed a leader to follow, and Maxie was the only choice.  She rises to the challenge when one presents itself to lead.

  Achilleus:  Achilleus hasn't changed at all since the beginning of the story.  In the beginning he was  a big tough guy who was good at fighting.  He didn't have any good relationships with any of the other children, he would keep to himself and defend everyone if he had to.  Later in the book he is mainly unchanged.  He still keeps to himself, does as he is told and protects everyone  if they are under attack.

  Arran:  Arran was the brave leader of the waitrose kids.  He was smart, brave, strong and kind.  He was always looking out for everyone and keeping everyone together.  He was going to lead all of the kids to the palace safely until they were overrun by a large pack of grown ups.  He was weak from a bite in his neck but fought and did everything he could to make sure no kid would die.  He fought until they forced the grown up back until he was hit in the lung with an arrow.  An accident, Arran lied on the ground in pain but kept the strength a will to push on.  Sadly Achilleus wanted to speed things up and pulled the arrow out which killed Arran.  He died a brave fighter in battle and would have kept everyone alive at all costs.

  David:  All though we don't know much about David Ollie thinks everything at the palace isn't as he made it out to be.  He wants to gain power over London using the dead royal family.  They don't have as much food as they need to feed all of the new children.  David also wants to use Maxie and her friends to help him take over London.  David and his real intensions are unknown. 

This is a picture of what life could look like after the apocalypse happened.

Update 3

  After all of the kids went on their shopping spree for new clothes, they continued their journey to Buckingham Palace.  When they arrived there were kids in the British guard outfits with rifles on the the walls to watch the gate.  They opened the gates as Palace kids living there rushed to greet the new survivors.  Jester introduced them all to David who is 17 years old and the leader at the Palace.  David showed them around the palace and introduced them to the head gardener and nurse.

  That night they all met in the dining hall to have a good feast of food.  While everybody was chowing down on food Ollie thought it was time for him to start snooping around the palace because David didn't seem like the person he looks to be.  Ollie was looking around and found his way in the darkness to the kitchen where chef's were working to cook food.  There were about 20 Palace kids eating in the kitchen eating terrible looking soup while Ollie's friends were all feasting upstairs.  He then knew something was off about the Palace.

  The next morning David unveiled what was left of the royal family chained to their thrones a zombies.  David wants to keep them alive and to reunite London under the Royal family again and to give people hope.  He ordered Blue and anyone else who wanted to go to deal with wild savage squatters in St. James park.  David wants them to be gone so they can increase their gardening and food planting.  

  About 40 fighters went while the non fighters and little kids stayed back to play in the Palace.  Their shear size was to intimidate the squatters to move away.  When they arrived their leader Just John was being very stubborn to not move when Achilleus used his sledge hammer to knock out John and fighting broke out.  The Waitrose kids were fighting the other squatters while the Palace fighters went to pull down the pathetic shacks they lived in.  Freak was at the Palace and heard the fighting, he went over to help as it started to rain.

  Freak was helping Maxie who was on the ground in pain when Just John stabbed Freak in the back which later killed Freak.  Maxie in rage took out Arran's club and smashed and broke John's nose which started bleeding.  She threatened to kill him when the other squatters gave up.

  While this is happening Small Sam is still trapped with other kids in the subways.  But one night a boy comes to their rescue and breaks Sam and Rhiannon out while the twins are to weak to move.

This is Buckingham Palace where Maxie and her friend's will be living for saftey.

Book Recommendation

  A book that I recommend that people should read is "No Easy Day" by Mark Owen.  The book is about the largest manhunt in U.S history, where a group of people spent 10 years tracking Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.  The book also is about everything that the Navy Seals went through like months of training to kill 1 man.  Everything was planned out for years with good intel, a 3D model of the base and they had to work until they could actually complete the mission, and end Bin Laden's life.

  At first before I read this book I was a little skeptical because I didn't think the book was going to be that exciting but I was completely wrong.  It was very informative and gave firsthand accounts of every person's point of view during the raid.  I liked learning about all the intel people had to gather and everything everyone involved had to do to complete one of the most important and biggest assassination missions in the United State's history.

This is the cover of "No Easy Day," by Mark Owen.

Update 2

  The Waitrose kids and the Morrisons banded together to leave in the morning and to make it to the palace by night.  Their group of kids in total equaled 80 with the small kids in the middle, and the bigger and better fighters making a ring around them.  They started marching from Waitrose to a new beginning at the palace.  The group with Arran and Blue at the front marched for awhile until they ran into a massive army of grown ups at the top of the hill ready to charge.  Before the grown ups were always stupid and dumb and could never organize a real attack.  But they some how evolved and started to charged the group.

  Arran and the best fighters move to the front in a fighting position but Arran was was after his bite in the neck started to make him sick and it slowed the group down.  Lewis and some other fighters protected the little kids in the corner and had to stop them from running around in panic, they had to hope the main fighting force would hold out.  Meanwhile Arran looked around and saw that his fighters were being overrun and slowly being picked off one by one in the large numbers of the grown ups.  But his team was able to fend off the grown ups and send them running away.

  Arran was angry and wanted to chase them down to kill every last one of them when he was shot by an arrow through his lung and collapsed.  A girl named Sophie  and her survivors came across from the hill as Arran was slowly dying.  Everyone was weighing the options on what they should do , when Achilleus became impatient and pulled the arrow out of his lung.  Arran then couldn't fight anymore and died.  They lost many other kids and decided to burn them in honor and to not let the grown ups eat them.

  Small Sam left from Waitrose with food and water that Callum gave him and headed on until he hit got a flat tire on his bike and some grown ups chased him into the subway station.  It was dark and Sam was alone.  He traveled everywhere underground hoping to find a way out and evading grown ups, until a man named Nick saved him and brought him to his home in a train with his wife Rachael.  They somehow survived the apocalypse and took care of him giving food and a bed to sleep in.  But they are not who they seem when Sam is asleep they handcuff him to the bed.

  Maxie's group presses on into the night when they travel through a park and were ambushed by creatures  from the trees.  They fended them off but it wasn't enough after they lost 5 more kids who laid dead in the tall grass.  They spent the night in a garden and were down to 53 kids left in all 3 groups together.  They pressed on not seeing many grown ups when they stopped at some clothing stores to go shopping.

This is Oxford Circus in London.  Maxie and the group go shopping in this area to get nice clothes for the palace.

Predictions and Questions

Arran and Blue's groups have now started there journey to Buckingham Palace in their total amount of kids at 80. They project the journey will take 1 day but my first prediction is that they will encounter many grown ups along the way and have to fight them off to defend the little kids in the middle.

  Prediction 2: Small Sam will have to fend for his life as he is alone and cannot find the group and doesn't not know where they are headed.

Prediction 3: Many kids will die on the long journey to the palace.

Prediction 4: Arran and Blue might have fights and arguments about what they think is best for the group's safety.

 My final prediction is: Small Sam will die either by grown ups eating him or not finding food and water.

Now I have some questions to ask about the story. Question 1: How did the disease outbreak start? Was there some new virus that infected everyone above the age of 16?
Question 2: Why are kids immune to the virus? If it was a world wide epidemic you would think that everyone would be infected. Right?
Question 3: How does Arran not know if Jester is lying about the safety of Buckingham Palace? Maybe they are being lead into a trap?
Question 4: I wonder how Small Sam will do on scavenging for supplies like food and water to survive on his own in a dangerous world? My final question is why haven't the kids found any guns or real weapons instead of wrenches and lead pipes to defend themselves?

A text to self connection for this book is when I played an iPhone game called plague inc. where you are a plague and you must evolve it to kill the world.  So one of the viruses I played as was a virus that turned people into zombies like in my book.  After awhile I turned every person into a zombie.

A text to text connection for this book is to the T.V. show The Walking Dead.  The Walking Dead also takes place in a post apocalyptic world where a disease turned people into half living and half dead creatures that want to eat meet.  In both stories there are protagonists who try to survive by any means necessary and lose many people they love on the way.

A text to world connection for this book could be a worldwide disease like Aids.  In my book a worldwide disease infected every adult in the world and was not preventable.  Aids is also a worldwide disease in our lives today where anybody can get it and it is not avoidable.


This is a picture of what a grown up zombie could look like in the book.

The Enemy Update 1

After I left off Arran and his scavenger group were ambushed at the pool. Deke was taken and killed and also Small Sam was taken by the grown ups. Arran was bitten by a woman at the pool and his neck needs medical attention or it will get infected. As Arran and his scavenger party returned back Maxie was afraid to break the news to Arran about Sam but Arran had to get bandaged by the group nurse. That night all of the kids in the group met on the roof while Arran broke the news to everyone about Deke and Maxie about Small Sam. Arran as the leader of the group, had to show bravery and leadership to calm everyone down to boost morale. During the meeting they hear a voice screaming and banging on the walls. With there spotlights Arran decides to help the boy in need and he gathered his best fighters and went out to get the kid to safety. They were being overrun when the Morrison's crew came in for backup and they all hid inside. The kid was from Buckingham pallace and was named Jester. Arran and Blue the leaders, asked him question on why he was here. Jester was sent with 4 others to travel across London to find survivors and bring them back. Jester was the only one to survive, he told Arran that life was great at the pallace with most of the grown ups gone and leaving the kids to do whatever they want there. Jester and the others didn't know there were more grown ups further away. Arran and Blue decided that their groups would join together and make a trip to Buckingham Pallace. Small Sam was not dead, but was able to escape the grownups at the stadium and made it back to Waitrose only to find nobody there.

Character Profiles

The Enemy Is Real

       In "The Enemy" by Charlie Higson, the first 15 pages have had a lot of action.  The book started off in a post Apoplectic London after an outbreak turned any person above the age of 16 into zombies.  Small Sam was playing oust side with some other young children without a guard.  3 zombies flanked Sam and stuffed him into a sack and carried him away over the wall before any other children could arrive to help.  It is a dangerous adult zombie infested world where strong zombies are slow, smart zombies are weak and fast zombies are stupid. 

       Arran is the leader of a group of over 20 kids trying to survive and a girl named Maxie is his second in command.  Every person in their group has different skills and are all different ages.  By the time Maxie and her group arrived to Small Sam he was already gone, they were to late.  Maxie is now mad at herself that they couldn't do anything to save him.  Josh and Callum comforted Maxie as she began to cry, she knew it was all her fault that another kid was taken.

       Arran was out leading a scavenger party to find food and supplies to bring back to camp.  Before the world became infested with zombies Arran was the captain of his soccer team and now leads a survival group.  In his scavenger group is Freak and Deak, they were best friends and a team.  Freak and Deke never go anywhere without each other.  Arran was the leader of the group but Achilleus was the best fighter and has saved them countless times.  Finally there was Ollie who was small but the cleverest of them all.

     As they are walking down the street they here howling of a pack of dogs.  They take defensive stances with Achilleus in the front with a spear, Freak had an axe and Deke has a sledgehammer.  Soon a pack of many dogs stood 20 feet away from them and started barking.  Arran and the group started making racket to scare some off.  But the brave dogs stayed and inched closer but Ollie used his slingshot shoot a metal ball into the leader killing it.  Achilleus took down a German Shepard and the rest of the pack ran away.  They took the leader and carried it back to camp to cook for food, lately the children were very hungry.

Who Is the Enemy?

  The book I will be reading is "The Enemy", by Charlie Higson.  I chose this book because I wanted an exciting action book with many setbacks and breakthroughs.  I also chose it because it is a life or death kind of book, where the protagonists will do there best to survive in this post Apocalyptic future.  I have never heard of Charlie Higson but this book and many of his other books have gotten very good reviews and I wanted to read a book I haven't read before. 

  My book takes place in London in the post apocalyptic future after an outbreak disease that turned every person on earth above the age of 16 to zombies or death.  Anyone under the age of 16 is left alone in a zombie infested world to fend for themselves in groups to survive.  Adults zombies roam the streets looking for children to kill.  The main characters are 2 teens Arran and Maxie who have been promised food and medicine at Buckingham Palace, but must travel a long distance in a dangerous world using makeshift weapons to defend themselves.  Their group is full of many ages of kids and most struggle to survive.  Many are lost along the way, the only safe place for them is at Buckingham Palace.

http://www.readingteen.net/2011/02/book-review-enemy-by-charlie-higson.html