The Terrorist

Cooney, Caroline B. 1997. THE TERRORIST. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 9780590228534.

Laura and Billy are enjoying their year in London while their dad is working in and around the city. They are making new friends at school and learning more about public transportation. Billy is a care-free boy who makes friends easily and tries everything he can to make money. When Billy is killed in a terrorist attack, Laura decides she needs to find his killer.

The setting of this book is in London several years before the 9/11 attacks. Laura’s family is there for a year while their dad works around London. The school Laura and Billy attend in London plays a very important role in the story. They attend the London International Academy which educates students from countries all over the world. Most of the students are very studious and up-to-date with world news. Laura has classmates from Syria, Israel, and Iraq along with many other countries. Laura is portrayed as a typical American who is not very educated on world events. She is more concerned with what mysterious, romantic boy will be taking her to the upcoming dance than which country is at war with which country. After Billy’s death she realizes how little she knows. “I’m ignorant, thought Laura. I was proud of being ignorant. I felt superior because I didn’t know anything” (page 72). Although this was hard to read, I have to admit that I am not as educated as I would like to be about world events.

The conflict in this story is between Laura and her peace of mind. She feels like she has to figure out who killed Billy in order to know his death was not a senseless act of violence. She becomes obsessed with finding the killer and begins to alienate herself from her friends. “Laura’s eyes burned, dimly seeing the outline of killers where before she had had friends” (page 66). She becomes so preoccupied with finding his killer that the important people slip under her radar. At L.I.A. Laura and her brother learned early that you do not ask other their country of origin. This becomes especially important after Billy’s death when Laura begins digging in to her classmates backgrounds in order to find Billy’s killer. She is reminded by several of her friends that it is not a good idea to pry into other people’s lives.

The point of view is different from most of the other books young adult books I have read. Instead of the traditional first person, this book uses the third person point of view. It skips around among the characters giving the reader a close look at all of the characters. We can see that Billy sacrificed his life to save others. Right after he is handed the package he thinks, “He could not throw the package into the innocent crowd…In front of him was a sleeping baby” (page 11). When Thomas is trying to console his daughter Laura we see the trouble he has coming up with words to say. “Thomas could think of nothing to say to Laura. (It’s okay. Everything will be all right. We’ll fix it.) No. It wasn’t okay. He could not fix it” (page 40).

A theme for this book is that justice is not always served. Even though we find out Billy’s killer at the end, there is never a punishment for that person. Since she is a minor she is placed in a foster home, but runs away after a few months and is never seen again. Justice is never served for Billy’s killer but Laura and her family still have to find a way to move on. “In the end, readers may not be quite satisfied with the revelations about classmate Jehran and her mysterious household as they relate to the Williams tragedy, but the book does a fine job of conveying the ambiguity and void facing a family looking for answers from the dark underground of terrorism.” (O’Malley 1997).

Reference List:
O’Malley, Anne. “Review of The Terrorist.” Booklist 93, no 21 (1997): 1810. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA19635177&v=2.1&u=txshracd2583&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w (accessed October 24, 2011).