Book Review

 

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

The novel Stormbreaker, written by Anthony Horowitz is an adventure book based on the adventures of a fourteen year old boy. As the main character is a young teenager, this book is well suited to the young teen/ ‘tween’ target audience; that being around the ages of 10-13. The structure and language present throughout the novel is designed to be an easy read for the shortened attention span and limited vocabulary of a young teenager. 

Stormbreaker revolves around the general plot of a teenage spy who is thrown out of his ordinary life and into the world of espionage. The novel begins with the tragic loss of Alex Rider’s uncle and guardian, Ian Rider, who was reported to have died in a car crash. The death of Ian Rider seemed to be too suspicious, as Alex always saw his uncle as a cautious man. Alex decides to investigate what truly happened and soon finds his uncle’s car at a junkyard covered in bullet holes and splattered with blood all over the seats, proving that his suspicions were correct.  His investigation to uncover the person responsible for the murder leads him to Alan Blunt, the spymaster for Britain’s M16 espionage agency who blackmails him into becoming a spy for the agency. It is here that Alex’s world is completely turned upside down as he discovers the truth behind his uncle’s death as a spy while he was investigating Herod Sayles and his donation of Stormbreaker, a super-advanced computer, to every school in Britain. It is here where the plot thickens as Alex is sent out to complete the mission his uncle started; to find the truth behind the plans of Herod Sayles. The central theme in Stormbreaker is not just about spying, but something more complex that young teenagers can associate with; adapting to new situations. This particular theme of displacement is appealing to young teens as they will be experiencing changes in their lives; primary to secondary school, etc.

Stormbreaker uses simple and casual language to appeal to its younger target audience as their vocabulary at their age is naturally restricted to simple and colloquial language. This can be shown through the quote, “That was your bliddy fault,” where it uses the word ‘bliddy’ to replace ‘bloody’ in the slang phrase. The novel also uses a fair share of onomatopoeia, so that young readers can understand the sounds which are being made; “Eeerg!”.  The structure of the novel is also well designed for a young viewer as it takes into consideration the short attention spans of young children. To compensate for this, the book is structured into short chapters ranging between 10-20 pages at maximum. This, also combined with the short, sharp sentences near the climax, helps create a fast paced and more suspenseful book which is able to keep the reader interested constantly; “He already decided not to stay there. It was too dangerous. He would find somewhere to hide out.” Alex Rider, being a fourteen year old boy in a peculiar situation, is appealing to its target audience because young teens will know exactly how he feels; with they’re shift into high school. 

Anthony Horowitz’s, Stormbreaker, is a highly entertaining adventurer novel which is surely to get the reader’s attention as it incorporates a familiar theme that its target audience of young teens around the age of twelve can easily adapt to. This book does not require an extensive knowledge of literacy to understand and is for these reasons that I find this book a good read for any teenager who are looking to escape from reality for a bit.

McDonald's Advertisement - Lebron James and Dwight Howard

Purpose and Target Audience

The purpose of this advertisement, like all others, is to promote their product to the public to influence them into purchasing the product. This commercial, being a McDonald’s advertisement, attempts to encourage viewers to buy McDonald’s for consumption so that they may become like the people in the advertisement. Since the commercial features Lebron James and Dwight Howard; two of the best performing and well-known players of the NBA, it focuses on targeting the supporters of basketball, but more particularly, the people under twenty years of age as they are the ones who are most likely to idolize these athletes and have aspirations to become like them.

Structure and Techniques

The McDonald’s advertisement uses the AIDA structure of advertising quite effectively in this commercial as it adheres to the four aspects of the AIDA model. As successful advertisements do, this commercial incorporates persuasive advertising techniques to sell their product/service. 

The advertisement grabs the viewer’s attention right from the beginning as it begins with an awkward silence when compared to the normal advert which is generally loud. This silence is able to grab your attention as it disrupts the abnormity in which the viewer is typically given. The sound of a basketball being bounced is also present within seconds, accompanied by Lebron James and Dwight Howard talking to each other in a basketball court. This brings up the first technique which is used in this advertisement; that being a testimonial. The use of two extremely talented and famous NBA players to endorse the product is a testimonial as you generally have a higher amount of respect for those people since they are at the peak of their careers, extremely talented at what they do and are what most people would want to be. This allows the viewer to assume that what they say or do is the correct or better option. 

At the beginning of the commercial, the interest of the viewer is attained from the peculiar quietness in the advertisement; however, the interest from this would soon die out from the general lack of interest and short attention span of most people. This advertisement is able to hold our interest through introducing an upbeat soundtrack to accompany the display of basketball tricks in which they perform, as part of a “game” to see who gets to eat the McDonald’s meal. This is able to hold the interest of almost everyone, with the exception of those who outright hate basketball, as the tricks they perform look entertaining and are almost impossible for the average person to do. The tricks performed gradually get more difficult because the two players are attempting to outshine one another. They incorporate the technique of humour into this, as the tricks they come up with, become increasingly outrageous. They, in their attempt to beat each other, become sort of childish in their attitude and this too can be considered humourous. 

The advertisement is then able to arouse desire for McDonald’s as you see the product being eaten by Larry Bird, a former NBA player. For the younger viewers, this person would seem like a stranger but for the older viewers, they would be able to understand the joke as this was a remake of an old McDonald’s ad featuring Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. Nonetheless, the humour behind him eating the prize is enough to get a laugh from the viewers. This advertisement is also able to arouse desire through having the players compete for McDonald’s making it seem that McDonald’s is worth being competed over by such famous stars. This gives you a false belief that they got to where they are by eating McDonald’s which is an example of the ‘big lie’ and simple solution technique. 

The last step in the AIDA model is to attain the action of the viewer’s to buy the product. Unlike most advertisements where an imperative is present at the end, this commercial only has the company logo and slogan, “i’m lovin’ it”. The possible reason for this could be that McDonald’s is so well-known for what they do that they do not have to instruct people to buy their product. Even though this advertisement does not have an imperative, the viewer is given a subtle urge to buy McDonald’s to mimic Larry Bird and have something that both Lebron James and Dwight Howard wanted but could not attain. 

The McDonald’s advertisement appeals to a twelve year old, as at this age, they have their whole lives ahead of them and for most of them, their dreams would be to become like Lebron James or Dwight Howard; famous superstars.