1.  By Mia

I really enjoyed this book because I liked the story which is based on a man who is 200 years old and a boy called Jonah whose mum can't leave the house. I particularly liked the chapel because the organs suddenly start playing... The book is not based in real time but when I read it I thought it was.  I would like to read more books by this author and in fact I have already read lots by him. I can't write much more because I don't want to spoil it for others.

Overall it is an amazing book!

 

2.  Hannah

The setting was quite normal at first and then the other settings of the story were more interesting and a lot more exciting. Overall in my opinion I felt the settings were very good and each one had a story behind it to show why it was set there. The choice of characters was very interesting as each single one had a different emotion they would express a lot like Jonah would always feel alone. Descriptions of the characters was very clear in the text which made me have a clear picture in my mind about what they looked like and how there lives were different to the others.

Lots of twists were in the plot which made it more invigorating and they weren't easy to spot when here was going to be one. the historical information I learnt was about how children were not treated with respect like nowadays. As well as that the foundling hospitals and how they were used to do jobs for the more wealthy adults.

I do recommend this book to people who like books with a story line and twists but also educational information. Such as children from age eight to twelve. As it is very fun to read as well as a way to learn new things.

I enjoyed this book very well as It was unexpected and also very mysterious at times which made it more enjoyable for me to read. The illustrations were very clear and showed well what people looked like and what was happening in the chapter.

I rate it five out five for al; the excellent twists and ideas that made it a very special book for me to read.

 

3.  By Keira

The settings: His home, school, woods, school chapel, church, London, Countryside, cottage, founding hospital, Bourne Park.

The characters: Jonah(Main character), Jonah's mother, Valeria, Mrs Rainer(His teacher), Ralph, Moby, Marlon, Jack, The phantom Organist.

The plot: Johan went to school and went into the schools chapel and found a button. Then suddenly music started playing and out appeared  the man who playing the music. His name was Nathaniel Hogarth. He was a ghost. He talks about his story about when he was younger and he talks about his most sad and happiest moments is his life like he was a homeless baby and no one cared for him accept two lovely adults. At the end of the story Nathaniel and his friends meet two important people.

Did you enjoy this book? Why?: I enjoyed this book so much because its completely different to what I normally read and it's really wonderful and nice to read it. I love this book so much!

Illustrations:Michael Foreman

Rating out of 5: 5

 

4.  By Ina

This book is about a young boy called Jonah, who is upset because it is the eighth of May, the day his Mum had had an accident.  At school everyone is bullying him and to calm down, he goes to the church, which was once a Foundling Hospital.  He finds a button on the floor and suddenly a ghost, called Nat, appears and talks to him.  Nat tells him that this button is lucky.  Nat also tells Jonah about his own past:  how he had foster parents and then lived at the Foundling Hospital.  Nat was then apprenticed by William Hogarth, who soon fell ill, and Nat then got moved to work for Sir John Sullivan.  There he becomes friends with Mozart.  He travelled with Mozart who helped him find his foster parents, whom he loved so much. Nat gave Jonah the button, which changed everything from bad to good.

I personally liked Nat the most.  He taught me a lesson through his storytelling about how people are not always who we think they are.  For example the story he told about how Mozart was such a 'wild child' sometimes.  I also liked how Nat could feel and understand the pain Jonah felt although there was two hundred and forty years difference in age between them and so he taught how age doesn't matter and we can be similar to each other.  He also taught me how we can all tell stories.

I felt moved in the first chapter when he told about his mother's accident and when he explained how he didn't have any friends and how he was bullied.  Before long, I started to feel this was the perfect book.  It was motivating, captivating and included new words, (but not too many).  Morpurgo explained everything clearly and allowed me to enter into a new world.  It was a story that was very touching and made me feel as if I wanted it to never end.

 

5.   By Sophia.

I really enjoyed Lucky Button. My favourite bit is when Noah goes into the chapel where he always goes to sing songs to himself, or cry, or think about the foundling children, but suddenly he starts to hear some of his favourite songs being played on the organ. Nobody is there but he could hear the music as plain as ever. Then a ghost appears by the organ.

The reason the ghost knows his favourite songs is because he always listens to Noah sing. He was always there.

Another bit I liked a lot is when the ghost tells Noah his life story. In his life story he meets Mozart as a boy. He is extremely energetic at the best of times. The ghost starts out as a foundling child. When it was alive, he was given to the foundling hospital. His mother left a button with him so she could claim him and take him home later on, when he is older. He loved singing just like Noah and he was good at it too. He was so good that his singing teacher sells him to one of greatest composers of all time, to sing in the Messiah. Then he died.

The ghost is sent away to a new master as a stable boy. He dies a few years later and is sent away to Sir John. He arrives as the Mozart family come to stay. Being with Wolferl is life changing for him. When the Mozart family leave for Europe to play concerts for King George, he comes to because Mozart cannot stay without him.

In the end he did so well in the concert the king asks him, 'Can I do anything in return?'.  Mozart replies, 'Can you give us the address of his real mum and dad?' so they go to the address the king gives them. Sadly his mom is dead.

That lucky button was life changing for the ghost. Can it change Noah's misery? His mum's leg is broken and she can't walk. He does everything for her and he gets bullied at school.

The book was beautiful but at the same time it was really sad in some parts.

 

6.  By Caleb

I liked how he used good vocabulary and he also could work on not putting bad words in there (one of the nasty boys called Jonah a 'd***' which shocked me as I would get told off for saying that. ) I read it quite quickly (about three weeks) because I was enjoying it so I tried to fit in reading whenever I could. 

The Mozart side of it was so cute! Although he was tiny, his piano playing was surprisingly good (and I should know because I learn the piano). I liked how he talked German and I had a helpful translation sheet to help me understand. I've read lots of Michael Morpurgo books and they include: War Horse, Farm Boy, Butterfly Lion, Kensuke's Kingdom and Private Peaceful, this was a new period of history for me. I would rate it 8 out of ten, for ages around 8-12.

 

7.  By Lily

Lucky Button in my eyes is a fantastic book.

I would recommend it for ages 9-13year olds. I would definitely recommend this book to a friend. I couldn't put it down.

Lucy Button is a book about a young boy Jonah who has a disabled mother He doesn't like school . At school it is split between girls and boys. Jonah and the school bullies get into a fight and after he gets cleaned up he runs to the town chapel where he finds a button. It belonged to a ghost and he told Jonah lots of stories.

My favourite pages are where he works with the horses and he has a favourite horse He saves his masters son from drowning. This part was very emotional.

If you love emotional and funny books that are made up of memories then you'll like this book.

 

8. By Liam

I enjoyed the book because I found that it was quite emotional sad yet funny too and it had a good story line. There wasn't any particular character which I liked or special part of the book which stood out to me.  However, I would like to read more books by this author because I found that the book I really enjoyed this book.

 

9.  By Elizabeth

I found this book really exciting. I liked it because I like reading historical fiction, I also like reading it because it tells two stories in one book. My favourite character was Jonah, he was my favourite because he was very kind and had to look after his mum.

I think this book is aimed at 9-13 year olds. I think this because it relates to lots of historical events and younger readers may not be familiar with these.

Overall, I think this book is very good and I really enjoyed it.

 

10.  By Cindy

This book has a lot to say about the past.  I very much enjoyed it.  I particularly like it because of the vocabulary and description of every item.  I liked how the author found a way to combine music and history all in one book.  In my opinion, the most memorable part was when Nat found a new home and settled in well.  I think this is the most memorable part because Nat found friends.  It even mentions in the book, 'Nat. Mein lieber Freund' which translates into 'You're my friend'.  He lived with people who took care of him and treated him as if Nat was their family.  I also liked the description of the chapel, which was big enough to seat all seven hundred people.

Lucky Button has some fascinating facts such as in the book it mentions foundlings who are separated from their parents and given numbers.  The book is very sympathetic and shows how children felt as foundlings.  It taught me that times change and people had very rough times in the past.

When I first started, I was not a book lover.  I always thought it was time-consuming so this book is the first Michael Morpurgo book I have fully read.  I realised that books have helped me discover adventure and more things I could add to my work.  I look forward to reading another Morpurgo book.  I would recommend this book to those aged over 6.  As there are illustrations in this book new readers will imagine and understand the book more clearly.  However, the book has quite a lot of text for young children and slight streaks of rude humour, but apart from that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  For people who enjoy history I would definitely recommend it.  On a scale of one to ten I would give this a nine.

 

11.  By Simone

Lucky Button is a very thoughtful book and focusses on the characters' personalities. It takes a leisurely look at Victorian life, whilst incorporating some very famous people of the time.

The story which is set in Victorian times is told by a ghost to a school boy called Jonah. Michael Morpurgo invites us to reflect on the sadness of little Jonah's life and then the happiness which a lucky button brings to him.

It is not very realistic, though, because school boys don't meet ghosts, and foundling boys didn't usually get apprenticed to kind rich people. However, the reader gets a sense of how luck can change someone's life dramatically, in an otherwise dismal world.

I would recommend this book to everyone! It's beautiful.

 

12.  By Sydney

I think it's too much thoughts and feelings and not enough actual story. I wanted some action! My favourite part was the ghost telling you jokes. The best thing about this book was the jokes.

 

13.  Amari

I was astonished when I read Lucky Button because  it was a  little bit historical and I was I thought this was a little bit  of a fairytale and the fact that when I read the book I was  like wow that book  was so amazing. I really enjoyed it.

  

14. By Eleanor

What the story is about: Lucky Button is about a boy called Jonah who finds a ghost in his school chapel. The ghost tells him about his life when he was in the Foundling Hospital, and when he left and made friends with the child Mozart.

Jonah's life is quite hard as he is bullied at school and he also looks after his mother who is in a wheel-chair because of an accident. He really enjoys talking to the ghost and finding out about what happened when the ghost was young.  Jonah also finds out from the ghost that the Foundling Hospital was set up by William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel.  The ghost tells Jonah all about how he was given a new name in the Hospital; how he met his foster parents Mrs Ma and Mr Pa; how he left the Hospital for an apprenticeship; and how he met Mozart and made friends with him. The story that the ghost tells also involves a Lucky Button, which helps Jonah as well as helping the ghost.  Mothers used to give 'tokens' like coins, buttons or brooches, to their children when they left them at the Foundling Hospital so that if they came back they will know who their child is.  The ghost's mother gave him a lucky button. 

Why I like this book: I like this book because it has a good story, and it involves Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I like Mozart because he is a really good music composer, and in Lucky Button (when he is a child) he is quite funny.  The history in this book is informative in an interesting way because it is about the Foundling Hospital as well as the young life of the composer Mozart.  Also, William Hogarth was a well-known English painter, and George Frederic Handel was a composer and they both set up the Foundling Hospital in this book.

I think this book is for 9, 10 and 11 year-olds. This book is really good, and really interesting, and I recommend it to anyone who wants a good book with an interesting and sometimes funny story. 

 

15. By Eddie

I think that Lucky Button was pretty good, but I think the only downside was that most of the book was the foundling telling Jonah his story. Also there were rather a lot of thoughts and feelings.

16. By Jack

This book is different to many others but enjoyable. There are many characters my favourite is Jonah, a boy who is living a hard life after his mum had an accident. His mum cannot walk so Jonah has to push her around in a wheelchair and look after her and the house. I can’t imagine having to do all the things my parents do for me all by myself. He also has to walk a long way to school on his own. He is a really character who looks after his mum and helps with her recovery. 

There is a really cool twist at the end, but I won't give anything away about that.

I really like Michael Morpurgo, his books are very interesting and I have read  two before called: Twist Of Gold and Kensuke's Kingdom.

I think this is a good book because of the characters they are very different because they speak another language and are very resilient.. And the history because an old man who is telling Jonah about his childhood. The story is set in London during two different time periods. 

I would recommend this book for anyone who likes a great story about real people.

 

17. By Millie

The main character was called Jonah Trelawney and it was an amazing book but I didn’t like how Jonah was treated like dirt. there was a special place which was the chapel and in the chapel there was a special character an old spirit that had allways listened to Jonah when he was expressing himself.

My favourite character was Jonah's mother sinse she allwaays stayed happy even though a tragic accident happened to her.While she was riding her bike on the eighth of May she fell off and now parilised,she also loved to sing.

I like the part in the story when the spirit is telling his story and becomes BEST FRIENDS WITH A HORSE CALLED  HORACE!!!This book made me want to know more about victorians because i found out that each foundling gets a button with the choild so when the child is older their mother can retrieve the child because of the button but…..the child can notfind his mother only the mother can come bach to get him/her.

The book was realistic and set in present tense. I absolutely love Michael Morpurgo books and would like to read more so far I have read: Farm boy, Long way home ,Twist of Gold(well it was our class novel) and now we are reading Kensuke's Kingdom.

18. By India

Lucky Button is probably one of the best books I've ever read because it tells you about history and you have still got the story to enjoy as well. I also enjoyed it because it tells you what the life of living in a foundling hospital was like in the olden days. My favourite character in the book would have to be Nathaniel because his journey through life was very emotional. It also had many happy times, like when he became friends with Mozart. The place I liked most would be the house where he lived with his foster parents, Mrs Ma and Mr Pa. That was what he'd called them! I definitely thought that the history of the book was realistic although it was a phantom telling the history story in a chapel throughout the book! This book has made me want to read more history novels and also more Michael Morpurgo because there are a lot of parts in the book that make you want to read on. I would recommend this book to many children from ages 6 and upwards.

 

19. By Summer

This book is a good book but can be a little not-exciting. I would recommend this book to a person that likes a book set in the past and the age recommendation would have to be 10 and up because children could find this a little hard to understand and the words are old fashioned.  The illustrations (by Michael Forman) are very good and beautifully coloured. There were some very sad parts to this story (especially at the start). The end of the story was quite exciting and happy because his mum got a lot better and cheered up. When he got into boat with Mozart, it got more exiting. The boat was called Louise.

 The end of the story was less sad and really was a very enjoyable part. There were not a lot of facts inside. I found it a little confusing because there were a lot of names that he’d met and it was hard to keep up. I also found it a little scary (especially the illustrations) and one of the illustrations were in a church that was very creepy and dark. The fact that it was set in the eighteenth century, is one of the reasons that I found it boring and sometimes sad because in the eighteenth century is when children were treated unkindly in foundling hospitals. I did love all the adventures of meeting people in different places. His school used to be a foundling hospital and has pictures of children from there all over the walls. This reminds people of what their school used to be like. Jonah's friend Nathaniel is one of my favourite characters in this book because he is a really kind friend to Jonah and if I had him as a friend, I would be lucky. My favourite part of this book is when he meets Mozart. Over all, I would rate this book a 8/10 because the adventures are very exiting but there were a few boring parts. I enjoyed it more than I got bored. So this book is not one of the best books I have ever read because of that.