The Indian In The Cupboard

2 Pages 592 Words

Lynne Reid Banks’
The Indian in the Cupboard


If you were ever looking for a book about great adventures and a constant turn of events, “The Indian in the Cupboard” by Lynne Banks would be it. This is a fictional story of a young boy who brings to life a plastic indian through a magic cupboard. Omri (the main character) faces a big responsibility in taking care for this little man. Throughout the book Omri meets new plastic toys such as Boone the cowboy and Tommy Adkins the World War two medic. Banks uses her vivid imagination to keep the book quickly moving and full of excitement. Banks’ story of plastic indians and cowboys coming to life displays her excellent writing ability, the most impressive point in this book was the attitude and amazingly life-like personality of the little toy men.

The story takes place in England in the mid 1980’s. Banks’ starts the story at Omri’s birthday part where he receives the plastic indian figurine from his friend Patrick. He also receives a white wooden cupboard. After the party Omri takes the gifts up to his room. He notices that the cupboard has a keyhole so his mother gives him several keys to try to unlock the door with. He tries all but one of them. The last key had a pink ribbon laced around it and it will lock and unlock the door. Omri places the plastic indian in the cupboard and when he re-opens it the indian is hiding in the corner, crouched down like a real indian in a battle stance. The author uses very descriptive writing, especially when she first talks about the indian. Banks is very good at letting you know exactly how each character feels about what’s going on in each scene.

There are a lot of complications that face Omri throughout the story. Banks makes it very easy to see that taking care of this plastic indian is a great deal of responsibility. At one point the indian desires to go out and hunt so Omri takes the indian out with a ho...