Valentine Joe product reviews

Cabbage (Rose) goes on a train trip with her grandfather to visit the grave of a family member who was killed in the war. This was the first point of confusion for me, who calls a kid cabbage anyway? My poppa fought in the war so I was keen to see what this book was about. I felt let down and confused with the flicking between past and present, however the writing style is really good.

How did Rose travel back in time and how did the present from Joe stay hidden for all those years? Did meeting Joe really help Rose deal with texting her dad? The fact that Joe is or was a real person brings tears to my eyes, loved son, brother maybe and way too young to die.

The graphics on the cover and the colours instantly make me think of the last post and I can almost here it playing inside my head. It seems very gentle but to the point of what the book is about. For a 150 page book it doesn't take too long to read and if you capture the right audience, you can read it over and over. Sadly I guess I am just not the right person. My 9 year old however likes it from reading the first chapter because its about history stuff and she hasn't been tainted by how bad the war really is. She's looking forward to finishing the book.

I would like to read more by this author so I can see if all her work is the same.

I read the blurb and thought this would be a good book to read, I did enjoy it but it was nothing like I was expecting.

I can't imagine visiting graves of family members I have never met due to them been killed in battle far away from home with no one around that loves them but that is how the story starts and then it gets strange and confusing as Rose goes to sleep in 2014 and wakes up in world war 1 but she can only been seen by Joe, a young boy who lied about his age to join the army and fight for his country.

I expected to read about how the soldiers felt in the war, they are far away from home and loved ones and a lot lost friends. I knew Rose would some how travel back in time but not why and I still wonder why she had to travel back as that was never told.

There was an afterword to the book that explained how the story of Valentine Joe was thought of, and you realise that it is a real story but obviously in real life there was no Rose going back in time, not once but twice and still have no explanation to why.

My 15 year old autistic daughter has started reading the book and she says it is a good story and that she is enjoying it. I personally wouldn't really worry to read this again in a hurry as it is not what I was expecting and I'm not sure why exactly someone would write a story of time travel to a war and then have nothing happen, there were no details of what happened apart from things that happened to Joe. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the story was a bit longer and had some actual details and had some of the questions been answered.

The book was only 150 pages so it was very fast to read, I managed in a few hours. The style of writing was easy to follow, just there are still questions that I felt could have been answered but lucky time travel like that is not possible and in this case I can see why she wanted to go and try and save a young boy.