Cardturner by Louis Sachar

Cardturner by Louis Sachar

A Novel about a King, a Queen and a Joker

Cardturner is a book about the card game Bridge. Alton is a seventeen year old boy who has been pushed into become his wealthy Great Uncles card turner by his forceful mother; who is only worried about receiving a good amount of his will.

Lester Trapp (Alton's Great Uncle) is a blind and rich man who is obsessed with the card game Bridge. He needs assistance to play due to his blindness - but not a lot. Alton is shocked at how good Trapps memory is as he only needs to be told once what all of his cards are. Trapp tells Alton "never to ask if i am sure" as this is how his last cardturner Toni Castaneda (a cousin of Altons) did not assist him again. Trapp is known as a wonderful Bridge player and has a phenomenal amount of points from playing so many games and winning tournaments.

Louis Sachar always creates unexpected events for example Altons car breaking down and Trapp buying a new one. Another example could be when Toni plays as Trapps partner in a game instead of his usual Gloria. This is what makes the book interesting.

Throughout the book Altons knowledge of Bridge grows from watching his smart Uncle play and with the help of Toni teaching him a few tricks. From this, Alton forms a close relationship (with Toni) which grows into a romance and decides that it isn't so bad spending his summer driving his uncle to 'Bridge club' where she will be.

Finally Uncle Trapp decides to take up the challenge of playing in The National Bridge tournament with Alton assisting him but before they reach it, he sadly dies leaving Alton and Toni to play on there own in Chicago.
Will they win?

Will they get some inheritance?

It was quite confusing when Louis Sachar was writing about Trapp playing the game "'I'm the only one to bid the grand, which would be cold if spades weren't five-one", but he used a whale (don't ask why it was a whale!?) to indicate that he was about to explain what had just happened and gave examples. These explanations were quite long but informative and at the end of the book you had an idea how to play Bridge.

I would give this book a ****  rating and would recommend this to anyone who is interested in bridge or anyone who fancies a bit of a challenge to understand the game.

I think Louis Sachar did a good job writing this book about a card game which sounded fairly boring to me into something interesting and knowledgeable.

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Other books by this Author include:

• Holes << This is a ***** book!! :)
• Small Steps << So is this
• Someday Angeline << and this
• The boy who lost his face << and this
• There's a boy in the girls bathroom << and this.
• Dogs don't tell jokes << oh.. and this :)

These are the only Louis Sachar books that I have read, but they are all really good so I would recommend them all :)

Here is an interview with Louis Sachar