He is then posted on the Rhine to defend against the Germanic tribes with only a single legion. He deftly parries their opening moves, with a combination of tactics, naval/river power, and cunning. But with no help from any of the other garrisons within Gaul, the end is only a matter of time. When the river freezes over on the last day of the year 400 A.D., the tribes are free to cross and enter Gaul. This book clearly inspires a lot of love from other readers and I can see how. It just wasn't for me and that's okay, I like bizarro which is definitely not for everyone. This one will be better suited to the next person I'm sure. Morpurgo added: “Storymakers and storytellers like Barrie, and like all the previous winners of this award, have given us the hope and faith children need, we need, to keep flying, have sustained us through dark and troubled times, have banished doubt. To touch the lives of children, to witness their listening and reading silence, is reward enough in itself. This is simply the icing on the cake.” Wallace Breem is clearly a knowledgeable person with great writing ability. This story was absolutely gripping. I loved the feel throughout the whole thing, as the dread built and built before finally breaking. Breem is a great writer, and I wish more people knew about this book. It should absolutely be a classic in the genre. I had just come off reading Colleen McCullough’s wonderful First Man In Rome, thinking this was going to be an entertaining little book, but not imagining I would love it nearly just as much. The books are totally different, but about equally as good. While I was reading this, by happenstance my uncle (a naval man) began a blog post with a quote: "Amateurs talk tactics; professionals talk logistics." And that sums up the consummately professional Eagle in the Snow in a nutshell: it is a book about logistics. If you are looking for Hollywood-style speechifying, swordfights and fanfare, look elsewhere. If you want to experience alongside the main character what it's like to be a Roman general just before the fall of the Empire, trying to raise an army and get them equipped before the German tribes overrun your frontier - which we, as readers, know they eventually will - then this is the book for you. Not for everybody, but if you like realistic military history, delay not: get a copy. I knew what was going to happen at the end, and I still cried. Tragic and perfect. This will be on my best-of-the-year list.

Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller (Phoenix Press)

I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” J.R. Tolkien But, he points out, too much choice is a problem. “We all have more choices than we had before. What do children do in their spare time? They are reading books but reading is only one of many choices. Books have to line up alongside video games and all those other things that occupy their hands and their brains.” Eagle In The Snow" by Wallace Breem centers on the years 405 AD to early 407, capturing a key moment in the Roman Empire's death throes as hundreds of thousands of mostly Germanic peoples mass on the east bank of the Rhine waiting for the river to freeze and to walk into Gaul. The tale is an epitaph for the Roman Empire with General Paulinus Gaius Maximus serving as the lone pall bearer, carrying the weight of an empire marching inexorably toward its grave. Michael Morpurgo has crafted a beautiful story within a story. Set in 1940 England during the bombing of Britain, a stranger tells a young boy and his mother how a chance encounter and the decision to do the right thing appears to have been the wrong thing done.

The extraordinary story of the man who could have stopped World War Two. A beautiful moral thriller from one of the world’s favourite storytellers.

Eagle in the Snow - Wikipedia

Por lo que he trastead por la red creo que es un personaje más o menos real pero con muchas licencias del escrito (vamos, que no es tan real como los que suele traernos Posteguillo). Buffalo and birds in nature canvas painting, trees and snow ready-to-hang canvas painting, winter landscape, canvas wall artHis latest book, An Eagle in the Snow, is a gripping account of a man who had the opportunity to kill Hitler but failed to do so. It combines history with a great yarn. Vintage Morpurgo.