The war that saved my life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

The war that saved my life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial Books, 2015)

46 chapters; 316 pages

Subjects: World War Two, London, evacuees, family, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Synopsis

I’ve always been fascinated by stories about World War Two evacuees, as it’s not part of the New Zealand war story at all. This author takes a different approach. The main character Ada is already damaged by a childhood of emotional and physical abuse by her mother, who seems to hate Ada for her disability (a clubfoot, which could have been easily fixed) and never lets her go outside. (The local children, who only ever see her waving from their window, think she is simple, not disabled.)

Ada is about ten years old, although she doesn’t know for sure. Despite being kept indoors for her whole life, she is smart and determined, and she gets her chance when her little brother Jamie comes home from school and announces that they are being sent to the country because of the war. Ada manages to escape to the train with him and as nobody else wants the two of them, they are reluctantly taken into the home of a childless woman, Susan Smith.

WW2 forms a backdrop to the story, with the neighbouring airfield and the danger of spies, and it provides several important plot points, especially at the end. The book traces the developing relationship between Ada and Susan, but also Ada’s growing sense of her own self-worth, which has been almost destroyed by her mother’s treatment of her.

Because she has lived such a restricted life up until now, Ada has never been to school, and can’t read or write.  The fact that she doesn’t know what everyday things like shops or banks are, or the meaning of many common words, is potentially tricky for a writer but Kimberly Bradley handles the challenge very skilfully.

This is a memorable story and I especially liked Susan as a character. Her life story is only hinted at, never fully described, but enough is hinted at to make it understandable, at least for older readers.      

I didn’t find Ada’s mother quite as convincing. She was so utterly malevolent that she seemed less believable, although the scene when Jamie finally realised the truth about her (which he had always been shielded from before) is very sad.

Reviews:

There are many glowing reviews of this book, such as this one on NZBookgirl. 
Kidsreads calls it “an unforgettable gripping story, one that is not only earmarked to be an award-winning novel, but also has the potential of becoming an all-time classic.”

The School Library Journal describes it as “Anne of Green Gables without quite so much whimsy” in which “hope, in whatever form it ultimately takes, is the name of the game.” “Enormously satisfying and fun to read, Bradley takes a work of historical fiction and gives the whole premise of WWII evacuees a kick in the pants.”

And this from Kirkus Reviews: “Set against a backdrop of war and sacrifice, Ada’s personal fight for freedom and ultimate triumph are cause for celebration.”

You can also find lesson plans here. 

About the author

You can find Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's website here. 

In this review on book reporter, she describes how she was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, studied chemistry at college and married her high school sweetheart, and now lives on a 52-acre farm, with ponies, dogs, cats, sheep, goats, and lots and lots of trees in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

Other books you might like:

Other books about evacuees include: Lord of the nutcracker men by Iain Lawrence, When the siren wailed by Noel Streatfeild, Ronnie’s war by Bernard Ashley, The dolphin crossing by Jill Paton Walsh, Carrie’s war by Nina Bawden and Uprooted: a Canadian war story by Lynne Reid Banks.

Have you read it?

Have you read this book? Let me know what you think!

Ronnie's war by Bernard Ashley

Ronnie’s war by Bernard Ashley (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2010)

ISBN 978-1-84780-162-3

190 pages; 4 sections (Blitzkrieg, Top bunk boy, The American captain, Man of the house)

Subjects: World War Two, London, England, evacuees, Blitz, Americans, VE Day, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Synopsis

When war is declared in 1939, Ronnie is a boy of eleven. By VE Day, he is a young man who has left school and is working as a spot welder, although his mother wants him to get an engineering apprenticeship. In-between times, the story takes us through his experiences in four separate sections. He is caught in the Blitz, and then evacuated to a village in Lancashire where he has to cope with a chilly welcome in his new home and a hostile reception and bullying teacher at school. His father is called up for the Royal Artillery and goes missing in action, probably in the Far East. Ronnie and his mother move out of London to another village in Essex where she gets a job working on an American Air Force base.  

The scene where Ronnie goes to look for his mother is a dramatic description of the aftermath of an air raid (there is a similar scene in The machine gunners by Robert Westall, when Chas and his dad make their way across town to try and find out if his grandparents are still alive.) His relationship with his mother – its ups and downs, through his teenage years, but their underlying love for and loyalty to each other – provides a link between the four sections, as does their ongoing worry and uncertainty about what might have happened to his father.

There are many small details that help to build up a convincing picture of life in Britain during the war. I always enjoy these unexpected details – facts like what happened with the wartime football league (it was all “guest players and soldiers on leave”, and teams weren’t allowed to play more than 50km from home), or that the Anderson (air raid) shelters that people dug in their back yards had blackout curtains instead of a door. Playground games, lessons, slang and meals all have the ring of authenticity. It also features one of the few fictional descriptions of VE Day celebrations that I’ve read (there's another one in Charlotte sometimes by Penelope Farmer).

Reviews:

This review in the Guardian calls it "a slim, to-the-point volume that proves you don't need to fell an acre to conjure a convincing fictional world... Four vignettes, then, which quickly yet subtly build a full picture of what ordinary life was like for a child who spent their entire adolescence under the cloud of war."

The Historical Novel Society has another review which describes the book (with a few reservations) as "an interesting portrait of a young man in his formative years, which happen to occur against the backdrop of war". 

Author’s website

Bernard Ashley lives in London and worked for many years as a teacher and principal. His first children’s novel was published in 1974 and he has published dozens since then. One of the most well-known is Little soldier shortlisted for the Carnegie medal.

He has some lovely answers to questions here. I especially like his answer to a question I invariably get asked at every school visit: Where do you get your ideas from?

"All around me. One of the advantages of living a hectic life in one of the world's busiest cities is that there's no shortage of drama and excitement around me. Sometimes comedy, sometimes - sadly - tragedy. I never use the people I know, but certain themes recur in relationships. In the creation of characters I use bits of various people. Hitting on the right name for a character is a great help, like the right costume is to an actor."

And I liked what he said about doing research:

"My liking of travel is often satisfied by doing research for one of my stories.
I have to get it right! If I say this London bus takes you there you can depend on it being right. And if you can trust me in the practical things I hope you can trust me emotionally, too."

When the siren wailed by Noel Streatfeild

When the siren wailed by Noel Streatfeild (Collins, 1974)

18 chapters; 174 pages

Subjects: World War Two, England, London, children, evacuees, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Synopsis

Laura, Andy and Tim Clark are evacuated to the country, like thousands of other London children, at the beginning of WW2. They are billeted in a large house with a “kind but gruff” old Colonel. When he suddenly dies, they are sent to live with the dreaded Miss Justworthy, at which point they decide to escape and try to get back to London to find their parents.

Reviews:

This review mirrors my feelings about the book. There is a lot of heavy-handed explaining, many of the characters are fairly one-dimensional (especially Miss Justworthy, the Evacuee Officer), and the children’s flight back to London isn't very dramatic or suspenseful. Some hugely important plot twists are explained away in a brief sentence or two. The children just aren't very interesting and their dialogue is hard to read (“D’you mean I’ll ‘ave a garden all me own what I don’t share with Andy nor Laura?”)

This is a pity because the subject of evacuees is such a fascinating one, and also because I love many of Noel Streatfeild’s other books, especially The painted garden and Ballet shoes, but this one doesn't have the same magic. 

If you are also a Noel Streatfeild fan, you might like to check out the amusing checklist of How to tell if you are in a Noel Streatfeild novel. Warning signs include: “You are ridiculously talented at one very specific thing”, “So are your siblings. Each of you has a separate, distinct talent, which is fortunate because it means you never have to compete with each other” and “You've never taken a single lesson related to your talents until the story starts. You’re just naturally, amazingly talented.”

(And if you enjoy that, you can go on to find out How to tell if you're in a Dorothy Parker, Jane Austen,Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens or any number of other novels. Complete diversion, sorry. Warning, some entries might be more risque than others.)  

About the author:

This timeline of Noel Streatfeild’s life tells you several interesting things you might not know, such as that she was born on 24 December (perhaps why she was given Noel as a second name) and her first name was actually Mary, that she was employed in WW1 at the Woolwich Arsenal as a munitions worker  (like Johnny’s mother in Lord of the nutcracker men), that she toured England with a Shakespeare company in her 20s and that her London flat was destroyed by a bomb in WW2 .

Other books you might like:

While clearing out some of our book shelves, I  came across another book about evacuee children: Evacuee by Gabriel Alington (Walker Books, 1988.) This treats the subject of evacuees from another angle: that of a timid English girl, Frances (or Fanny) sent away to the USA to live with “Aunt” Bird and her adopted daughter, Pepper. Fanny eventually comes out of her shell, which we know because she gets a new haircut, learns to swim and falls in love with Pepper’s 20-year-old adopted brother (which is slightly creepy as Fanny is only 13.) She also manages to walk into the White House and meet the President.

I think we bought this book at a book fair or second hand bookshops, and it annoyed me because of the plot holes and creepiness factor, but I did learn about the Firsters movement.  The America First movement was against any American involvement in WW2 and one of its leaders was Charles Lindbergh, the famous pilot.

Before Pearl Harbor, aviator Charles Lindbergh was so vocal about his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War II that he became an unofficial leader of America's isolationist movement.