'Violence 101' by Denis Wright

'Violence 101' by Denis Wright (The blurb):

My name is Hamish Graham and this is the journal I have to write. Doesn't worry me because I'm a good writer and I'd rather write than talk any day, although I like talking to Terry. The people who run this place don't know what to make of me. Just like the last place I was in . . .

. . . I think we should have these special schools for bad kids in hard core places like Waiouru and Central Otago where you do school subjects from 8am to 1pm and then in the afternoon you do things like compulsory mountain climbing and river crossings wearing huge packs. The kids who refuse to do it would get fed bread and water until they changed their minds. I would divide them into various teams and have mock wars. Military history would be a compulsory subject. I would also make the study of violence compulsory.

Hamish Graham is intelligent, disciplined, resourceful and fearless, and scorns all weakness. His heroes include Charles Upham, Alexander the Great and Te Rauparaha - all men of action. But he is also a fourteen-year-old with an anger problem and a disturbing past, and these have landed him in a series of boys' homes for violent and troubled young offenders.

The gripping series of events following his arrival at New Horizons culminates in a desperate rescue mission on a mountain that has already claimed the lives of two young soldiers.

Definitely a book worth reading, a quick read that takes only a few hours to finish. A very interesting main character, Hamish

Graham, who cannot control his anger, leading him to do many disturbing things but interesting things. This book, like I said

before, is definitely worth reading.