Sunday, April 28, 2013

Can I See Your I.D? by Chris Barton


When I saw the title of the book I thought about people stealing Identities for bad purposes but to my surprise the book is relevant and engaging. Identity theft is a growing threat, especially to the young individuals. 
The book is about 10 stories of individuals many just teenagers who adopted false identities for enjoyment, profit, or survival. From Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Civil War, to 16-year-old Keron Thomas, who in 1993 impersonated a transit worker to fulfill his dream of piloting a New York City subway train, but the most powerful stories, assuming a false identity was a life or death decision, as with Soloman Perel, a Jewish teenager who joined the Hitler Youth to escape being killed, and Ellen Craft, a slave who disguised herself as a white Southern gentleman to escape to the North.
The book reveals the motivations behind dishonesty also at the end of each story the Author gives us a, What happened Next? section, in which he tell us what happened after the event. The book material  is carefully researched, bringing together all the stories and is wonderfully written. "Can I See Your ID" will motivate many young readers to enjoying non-fiction. 
I will definitely recommend  this book because with the use of narration it creates a very effective way of making the reader imagine the identities of each individual.  At the end of the book the author gives us some insight on how researched and wrote this fascinating and clever book.





4 comments:

Unknown said...

This actually sounds like a really interesting book. I really like how all the different accounts of identity theft that the author chose to write about are so different and have different motives. From the 16-year-old who wanted to work as a transit worker to Ellen craft, who did it as a means to escape slavery. The story of Keron Thomas actually reminded me of "Catch Me If You Can" were Frank makes up fake identities and forges degrees to get several jobs.

JessicaGeelen said...

Wow! This books sounds so interesting! I love that it incorporates stories from different time periods so readers can see how the idea of assuming a different identity (or identity theft) isn't necessarily a new idea.
It would be a neat way to talk about dangerous kinds of identify theft or how identity theft has changed over time.

Anonymous said...

This book sounds like something I would enjoy reading. I like how there were 10 stories broken down of different individuals. To me it shows how real and serious this is. People do things for many different reasons rather it be for a good cause or not. I think this is something I will consider reading in the near future. Your review was good and you kept it simple.

mkorkmaz said...

Ten different stories of individuals sounds very interesting. I always enjoyed when I read real stories ,especially if it is about crime or violence. This book looks like that gives some good lessons to a reader. I like it.