Book Report On Unbroken

For my book report, I chose to read,” Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand. The book has 307 pages, and many pictures used to enhance the reading. The main character is named Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who joins the Air Force, and crashes into the Pacific Ocean. He survives on a life raft for nearly two months, until he is captured by the Japanese Navy. He spends his time in camp working, stealing, and trying to avoid punishment from the cruel guards. As a young boy growing up in California in the 30’s, Louie was a rascal. He stole from neighbors, and would steal anything he could get his hands on. He stashed his loot all over town in secret places so that the police wouldn’t find much on him. Louie was an Italian, so many people didn’t like him. He was held back a grade as a child, because of his ethnicity. He asked his father to teach him to defend himself from the constant bullying that he received. Louis learned how to punch, and starting fighting back, until he starting picking fights with other kids.

Louie didn’t like it much at first, but he started winning races and became the hero of the town. He trained like a machine and kept cutting his times down until he was running a mile in just over four minutes. He was nicknamed,”The Torrance Tornado” because of his speed. Louie eventually became so fast, that he qualified for the Olympics in Germany. The entire town of Torrance raised enough money to buy him a train ride to New York, where the athletes would leave from to go to the Olympics. When Louie raced, he felt slow because he overate on the 12 day boat ride to Germany, but he ran his last lap in 52 seconds, easily the fastest last lap of anybody racing in the 5k. He finished in 14:48.8 minutes, running an average pace of four minutes and 45 seconds per mile, finishing