Stay where you are and then leave by John Boyne

Stay where you are and then leave by John Boyne (Doubleday, 2013)

14 chapters; 247 pages

Subjects: World War One, England, London, hospitals, shell shock, conscientious objectors, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Synopsis

Alfie Summerfield is five years old, living on an ordinary London street called Damley Road, when the war starts. His father, Georgie, signs up almost straightaway. Four years later, Alfie is nine, the war is still going on and there is no word from his father. His letters have stopped arriving and all Alfie knows is what his mother Margie tells him: that his father is on a secret mission for the Government, and that’s why he can’t write any more.

The community of Damley Road is a close-knit one, and we find out what happens to a number of its other occupants during these four years. One of the most powerful moments is when two men in military uniform knock at the door to (slight spoiler alert here) deliver the news of a soldier’s death. Margie’s emotions skip from shock to horror to outrage as she realises they have the wrong house, and every other woman along the street stands in fear on her doorstep, waiting to see where they go next.  

Money is tight and Alfie decides to help out by skipping school (except on the days when they have history or reading) and working as a shoeshine boy at King’s Cross Station. This is where he finds out where his father actually is, and where he starts to dream up a plan to get him home again.

The Guardian review points out some of the coincidence in the plot, and there are some events that stretch credulity. I found it hard to believe that Alfie could get around the hospital without being detected, or that he could escape so easily when finally spotted. But it is still a story that pulls you along, and John Boyne does an amazing job of telling it from the point of view of a young child – for example, the way that Alfie views anyone aged 21 or over to be unimaginably old. There are some lovely insights into the nature of loyalty and friendship, especially that shown by Georgie’s oldest friend, Joe Patience, who is ostracised by everyone else in the street for being a conscientious objector. And I loved any scene with Mr Asquith in it!

Reviews

The Guardian book review (mentioned above) says "There may be a fairytale feel to this wartime tale of a boy's quest to find his father, yet it's a solid, engaging read." 

The Pretty Books blog also comments on the fact that "it is fascinating to see the world through the eyes of a child." 

Finally, the reviewer in The Book zone for Boys loved the book and says it is "much more than just a story about a victim of shell shock" and which "really brought alive the everyday travails of the people left at home".

About the author

You can read about John Boyne on his website, which has a special page for this book (although this older link is also quite amusing). 

About the illustrator

The chapter titles were hand lettered by Oliver Jeffers! 

Other books you might like

I can’t think of many similar books to this one. The way John Boyne gets into the head of a five-year-old, then a nine-year-old is hard to replicate. If you haven’t read The boy in the striped pyjamas, you should definitely read that.

NZ connections

Only to say that I heard John Boyne speak a year or so ago and was fascinated by his account of how he wrote The boy in the striped pyjamas in about three days, virtually non-stop. You can read about it here in this transcript of a talk with Dublin Public Libraries

Things I didn’t know

I didn’t know much about shoe shine boys, but now I've found out that the Shoeblack Brigade set boys up as shoeblacks in London in 1850. More than a dozen brigades were formed, each with their own uniform, and the boys often lived in hostels. The Shoeblack Brigades had mostly disappeared by the start of World War One. “Shoe shining continued as a London street trade for many years” but had virtually vanished by the 1960s.

You can see more of Frederick Wilfred's evocative photos of London here. 

Have you read it?

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

Ghost soldier by Theresa Breslin

Ghost soldier by Theresa Breslin (Doubleday, 2014)

33 chapters; 291 pages (but fairly large print)

Subjects: World War One, England, Borders, Scotland, trains, animals, dogs, hospitals, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Synopsis

The author’s website calls this “a mystery plus detective story with poignant scenes as two children, in a desperate search for their ‘missing-in-action’ father, meet the staff and wounded men on the hospital trains that stop near their farm”. The mystery/detective element is related to strange goings-on in an old house in the woods, a suspected German spy and a shadowy ghost figure in an upstairs window.

I liked the relationship between brother and sister Rob and Millie; the focus on how those at home coped – or didn’t cope - while the husbands and fathers were away at war, and the details about how dogs could be taken away by the army (which is why they try to save their puppy, and how they end up hiding it at the old house in the woods). Thousands of dogs were needed in the war so many families must have had to give theirs up, willingly or not. The story of the ambulance trains was interesting, too, although I was never clear about whether they did or didn’t try to take injured soldiers to a hospital near their home.

I found some of the action a bit hard to believe; either too many coincidences, or too unlikely (would they really have let the children on board the train? would they have let the wounded soldier wander round the grounds so freely at night?) but this post by the author about her research suggests that the ambulance trains did stop in the countryside like this.

Reviews:

In this review, Theresa Breslin said she started writing the book because she “was asked to provide a story for a film company and this was a story I felt needed to be told”. So I wonder if that means there is a film underway?

Author’s website

I didn’t know anything about Theresa Breslin before I read her book Remembrance, but according to her website, she was born and brought up in a small town in Scotland, worked as a mobile librarian, has written over 30 books for children and young adults and won the Carnegie Medal for Whispers in the graveyard (1994) about a dyslexic boy. Her website also provides teaching notes for the book. 

Other books you might like:

Remembrance is another book about World War One by Theresa Breslin, but for older readers.

The Anzac puppy by Peter Millett and Trish Bowles is written for younger readers about a dog in war time.

Things I didn’t know

The details about blood transfusion are intriguing. Today we take blood banks for granted but back in WW1 they were still figuring out the science of blood groups and anticoagulants. 
You can read about "A brief history of blood transfusion" at the Institute of Biomedical Science, or find out more at the Science Museum.