Make us homepage
Add to Favorites
FAIL (the browser should render some flash content, not this).

Main page » Fiction literature » Billy Eliot Book


Billy Eliot Book

 

 This novel, written by Melvin Burgess, is the book of the movie Billy Elliot. The story is told from the differing viewpoints of Billy, his father Jackie, his brother Tony and his best friend Michael. It is a tough, amusing and touching story involving music, conflict and choices.
     Billy, the main character, is an eleven-year-old whose mother has died, so he lives with his father, brother and grandmother in the north of England. His relationships with his father and brother are closed and fragile as they are fiercely involved in a bitter miners’ strike and they don’t spend must time with each other. Billy prefers to share his thoughts with his grandma, a kind, slightly distant woman.
      Billy, forced by his father, learns boxing. His father is so keen on the sport because it had been in the blood for generations and he feels it will make Billy more manly. Billy puts up with it with help from his friend Michael, the son of the boxing coach. Then one day, Billy sees the light: having to stay behind after boxing, he watches a ballet lesson going on. He realises that he enjoys the rhythm and soon enough, he has swapped the boxing gloves on his hands to ballet shoes on his feet. And it seems he has a talent, too. He starts coming back again and again, skiving boxing, then using the money to pay for the lessons. Along the way, he befriends a middle class girl named Debbie who is the daughter of the ballet teacher, Mrs Wilkinson. He only tells Michael, but when his father bursts in to one of Billy’s classes he realises he is in deep trouble.  Could he continue ballet in secret?



Purchase Billy Eliot Book from Amazon.com
Dear user! You need to be registered and logged in to fully enjoy Englishtips.org. We recommend registering or logging in.


Tags: Billy, England, northern, where, hometown, Eliot, small