The Midnight Guardians

By Ross Montgomery (Walker Books)

The Midnight Guardians By Ross Montgomery

Tymon's review
I really enjoyed reading the midnight guardians as it is a fast paced with an engaging plot.

I really enjoyed the Guardians. I found Pendlebury, the flying tiger to be hilariously bad at joke telling, Mr Noakes an interesting badger in a tuxedo and the King of Rogues who made sure you had to call him King of Rogues not just Rogues, and who always had a funny complaint.

The main enemy Midwinter King who is head of the supernatural world is seen as a scary enemy and determined to accomplish his goals of mass destruction.

The characters are always on the move which creates excitement as they are in a new setting with new exciting things happening and the added impact of fear with a bomb dropping creates an exhilarating atmosphere for the reader.

The story is themed around WW2 and the blitz bombing on London creating mass destruction. I learnt that Christmas was a mess in London as tensions were high and many people had to stay away in the underground tube stations for long times to avoid being killed in the bombings.

Even though a large part of the story is about the supernatural world and the Midwinter King wanting to destroy everything I think the WW2 aspect creates sympathy for the reader towards the people who had to live their nightmares in the London Blitz. And the thousands of people who spent time away from the family just to help the civilians in London, such as Col’s sister. I think this makes a difference to the way the story is read as there is a real life aspect.

I would heavily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading as it is very interesting and has many high speed moments with a historical theme behind it.

Humairah's review
This was one of the best books I have ever read. The plot and the characters were really interesting. I like the book because it made me think and wonder what was going to happen. It also had some really heartwarming parts and was overall a great read. One of my favorite books I have read so far and I would recommend to my friends.

Pedram's review
I enjoyed reading this book and it has quickly become my favourite book that I have ever read. I loved everything about it; the awesome sense of adventure, the fantastic sense of fantasy, the huge sense of humour that this book offered and let us not forget the great sympathy and empathy you feel for the characters.

The King of Rogues has to be my favourite character. He is everything I look for in a character as he is brave, a master knight and has a constant comedic quarrel with many characters as well as making all the other characters call him just Rogue which creates some comedic arguments. 

The only character in this book that I absolutely despised was Leonard The Bogie. He had too much to say and the things he said were annoying even though he did reveal the secrets of the sanctuaries. He may have set King of Rogues up for many jokes by using Pendlbery’s lack of joke-making, but he is still the most irritating character apart from Miss Ruth Bossy. 

Rather than learn anything new from this book, it confirmed what I knew already about the war, but I did love that nearly every chapter there would be a small news article. I loved that it was in the era of WW2 because that made Rose’s Rescue and the plot and setting of the whole book comprehendible, yet amazing.

The plot was exciting and dramatic: I mean the Spirit World, The Green Man, God of Darkness, The Everlasting Winter? How cool does the Villain Name ‘The Midwinter King’ sound? He brings storms, cuts people out of existence and telepathically, and painfully, sticks ice cold tendrils into bodes to read minds, consume memories, and absolutely evaporate a person’s purpose to live. How cool is that? Poor Buttercup never saw it coming. 

I also loved how they took creatures we thought were beautiful and pure, such as fairies, transformed into Butter-stealing disgusting flying rat monsters. I 100% recommend this book to other pupils that are fond of adventure and originality.

There is absolutely nothing I hated from this book. This is the Greatest Book I Have Ever Read. That is my rating! 

Ariba's review
In the book the character that I found the most fascinating was Ruth and that was because she was strong, although she did break down at times, but she kept going on helping the main character save his sister from a raid that would happen in London. The book was really interesting because of the parts when the main character, Col/Collie, has to face a nightmare from the Midwinter king who was trying to take over the spirit world plus the world. The book excited me and I didn’t want to stop reading. I would recommend the book to others. I learned some new words, some being the word laborious and mellifluous.

Aansah's review
I really liked this book, and it was a pleasure to read. The plot was amazing, and I couldn’t put down the book once I started reading it.

I think that the time it was set in appealed to me, and, after reading the blurb, I really wanted to read it since it sounded really interesting. My sister had also read this book, and she had recommended it to me as well, so I think that these factors are what caused me to choose this book.

My favourite characters are Col and Ruth. They are both really confident and they don’t let the different situations that they have been in change them. They never gave up, even when it seemed impossible to save Rose from the blitz.

I learned quite a bit about the London blitz from this book, and a bit about attitudes towards the Jewish refugees (kindertransport). I think that WW2 was something that in history was interesting and gave us as humans something to learn. Without WW2, we would have been ignorant, and many things that came along with WW2 (rationing, atom bombs, blackouts/raids) would have not happened. So I find WW2 as another event in history that we can take lessons from and have an ability to stop this from happening in the future. Some of the events that are based on real life in the book could have been prevented, so reading them shows you how you could have prevented it.

The plot was exciting, thought provoking and had a lot of serious and light-hearted parts.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the different events of WW2, and anyone who loves adventure books.

Elle's review
I really enjoyed reading this book because of the links between fantasy and World War 2. It taught me about what some people had to go through during the Blitz. But it also taught me about how much people had cared and helped one another during such hard times. I liked nearly all of the characters for different reasons, but one of my favourites is Pendlebury, because of her strength and resilience throughout the whole book, like how she gave anything to help Col. I also liked the amount of effort that Col would go through to save his sister, all his actions were driven by love for her. The story had me hooked from the start and I loved every part. From the nastiness of the Midwinter King to the loyalty of the Guardians. This plot was very exciting but also a bit light-hearted at parts. I would recommend this book to other pupils because of its teaching about World War 2 and its level of magic and wonder. But in short words, this is a great book!

Hafsa's review
I really enjoyed this book. It is the story about Col, who is evacuated in WW2. He goes to live in Buxton because he has lost all his family, but he meets the Guardians who are magical people and protect him. He has to travel to London to save his sister with the guardians and they also have to escape from the midwinter King who tries to take over the human world and he chases Col in his dreams. I liked this story because its very interesting and there are lots of characters that are cool. My favourite is Pendlebury. Col has a lot of difficulties on his journey so the story is always very interesting, lots of twists happen. I really recommend this book. I think you would like it if you like magic in stories or lots of twists or if you like good characters. I would not recommend this for very young children though because some bits would be scary.

Alizay's review
One aspect which I really like about this book is that there was a lot of imagination that went into this book and a lot of creativity as well as having lots of facts and history about World War 2. (I liked how there was a balance between facts about WW2 but I also liked how there was a storyline to it too.)

Owen's review
The Midnight Guardians was a very enjoyable book, and taught me a bit more about the average person's life in 1940, during World War 2.  I found the guardians the most interesting, because you’re left to think whether they are real or not. I learnt a bit about how differently they acted in war times compared to modern day actions. The book was set in World War 2, so it made it more interesting because there was more action in those times. What stands out the most for me, is that they try to live their lives like the war wasn’t happening. I would definitely recommend this to other pupils, as it is really good and educational in a fun way.

Safa's review
The character I found most interesting was actually the black panther and Ruth. They have a strong and fierce personality. I found the background story rather interesting. It was quite thought provoking and it made me really feel pity for those going through pain during this time.

What really stood out for me was the backstory of Ruth as she was a Jew and is away from her parents. It was really interesting as the time set, things would have been different in this modern generation.

I would recommend these books to people who really want to feel how those people during the war went along with it. The comedy behind it was funny.

Camille's review
Unfortunately I did not finish this book in time for the review deadline but I thought I should write one for what I have read so far. The Midnight Guardians is a sweet, amazingly imaginative story and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I think the fantastical element is fantastic and wonderfully combined with what life would be like during WW2. I especially like all the metaphors between magical creatures and life.



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