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This book is from Puffin's Warpath
series of fictional stories based on real events.
It is August 1940. John Smith is a nineteen-year-old spitfire
pilot and here he gives his own account of the part he himself
played in the Battle of Britain.
In the first section he tells how he is shot down but manages
to bale out. In the middle section he goes on a brief leave to
visit his parents in London, sees the devastation of the Blitz
and spends a night in the underground. Then in the last section
he describes the momentous and crucial events of September 15th
when the Luftwaffe relentlessly sent wave after wave of bombers
over southeast England.
The first person narrative works very well and brings immediacy
to the story. The reader is made to feel part of the dogfights
and shares John's grief at the death of his best friend. As the
story deals with only a short time -- two months -- the course
of the War is made very clear.
The aircraft are described in detail. There is friction between
John and his father and this brings out the point that, at that
time, the RAF were partly blamed for not giving enough support
to the Army at Dunkirk.
As well as being an exciting, well-told story, this book has also
a short factual section with diagrams of the aeroplanes, a kit
list, actual flying manual instructions and battle maps.
Very highly recommended.
8 -- 12
This is another book in the Historical House series. This series is about a London house and the girls who lived there at different periods of history.
This particular book is set during the Second World War and the main theme is about obeying your conscience and doing what you know is right and not following the herd.
Twelve-year-old Josie goes to stay with her aunt and uncle and cousin Edith in Chelsea for a few weeks while her mother goes to help her grandmother who has broken her hip. Josie is glad to get away from her own school for a time as the other girls first call her names and then ignore her. Even the teachers are cool towards her. This is because Josie's older brother, Ted, is a conscientious objector who is presently working in forestry. Josie thinks she will be much better in a school where nobody knows about this.
School is mornings only and so Josie and Edith are left to their own devices in the afternoons Edith's mother is working for the WVS. Edith is a rather naughty girl. She introduces Josie to her friends and they go and play on bombsites -- something which is strictly forbidden. They also bully and torment another girl, Alice. Josie remembers how she was treated in her old school and she knows this is wrong. She tries to stick up for Alice but at the same time she is afraid she will lose the friendship of Edith's set. Josie is now part of a group and she likes that feeling. Even worse, she fears that Edith will tell about Ted as she knows Edith has overheard her parents talking.
Then Josie does a dreadful thing. The top flat is occupied by Miss Rutherford -- the suffragette from Polly's March. Josie visits her for tea and Miss Rutherford lets slip that Alice's grandfather was German. Josie tells this to the other girls in a desperate attempt to keep in with them. Later she is overcome with remorse. She confesses to Miss Rutherford and they have a heart-to-heart talk. Miss Rutherford tells of her experiences with the suffragettes and says how Ted is right to follow his conscience.
This theme of doing what you know to be right and not following the herd is played out against an authentic background of the Second World War. The house with the blackout curtains, the meagre food, sheltering in the cellar during an air raid, the children searching bombsites for war souvenirs. There is an exciting climax with a description of an air raid. Ted and Edith's fighter pilot brother are both home at the time. They both help with the rescue effort and Josie realises that there are different kinds of courage.
Some serious ideas for young readers set against an authentic Second World War background.
8-12
The members of a boys' football team are in London for a weekend soccer tournament. On their shirts they have the initials TR - for Tanfield Rangers. But some think that the letters TR should stand for Time Rangers because some of the team can travel through time.
On the Sunday morning, before their matches, the boys are being shown round a Second World War exhibition in St Pancras Station. Three of the team, Jacko, Ryan and Worm (short for Bookworm) are reluctantly persuaded to dress up and have their photographs taken. They are dressed as evacuee children in long shorts held up with braces. They have name labels and gas masks round their necks and suitcases at their feet. One of the team laughs at them and they chase him up an escalator and suddenly find that they have been transported back to 1940.
They are shepherded aboard a train with other evacuee children and are taken back to Tanfield. They wait in the village hall and are finally taken away by a farmer who just happens to be Jacko's great grandfather. When they reach the farm they are greeted by Alice, a little girl of seven. Jacko is very quiet and that night Ryan and Worm find out why. The very next day the farm is going to be struck by a German bomb and Jacko's grandmother, Alice is going to be saved by an evacuee. That is the story which has been passed down in his family. If he does not manage to save Alice then he will never be born - a fate worse than death.
This is another exciting, amusing, entertaining and yet informative story about the Time Rangers. It maintains the standard set by the earlier books in this series.
8-12
This book was first published in 1977.
David and his friend Tucky are evacuated with their school from London to Devon. They stay with a farmer and his wife. One night Plymouth is bombed. David and Tucky lean out of their bedroom window and watch the raid from a distance. They are sure they see a German bomber crash on the moor. Next morning there is a search by the Army, Police and Home Guard but they find nothing and make it clear that they think that the boys made the story up. But next day David and Tucky persuade the farmer to let them make one last search themselves.
They find nothing either but, on the way back, while crossing a river by jumping from stone to stone, David falls in. He cannot swim and it looks as if he is going to be swept away when a German pilot appears and pulls him out of the river.
He is from the plane which David and Tucky had seen. The searchers had not found it because it had sunk in a bog. Only two of the crew have survived-- David's rescuer and another pilot who is injured.
The two Germans ask the boys to help them. They need food and blankets. Tucky thinks that would not be much considering that one of them has just saved David's life. They could easily bring food from the farm.
But David does not agree. His own father had been shot down over the French coast and he hates the Germans. Moreover, these are two bomber pilots who could have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people in London and Plymouth. In any case they are enemies and it will be wrong to help them. Yet one of them has just saved his life. They do not look threatening. They are just two exhausted, pale-looking men with sad eyes and kind faces.
What is David to do?
This book really brings home what evacuation meant to the children of the time. There is David's utter misery on the morning of the evacuation, the description of the scenes at Paddington Station where it looked as if every child in London was there, the long and exhausting train journey and the final scene in the church hall when the children were waiting to be chosen.
But above all this book poses some very deep questions about the very nature of war - and puts them in such a way that even very young children can understand.
8+
This book was first published in 1988. It is set in the middle of the Second World War, on a farm among the moors and fells near Penrith. Lambs and calves are being killed by a strange beast. At first a killer dog is suspected and then the paw prints of a big cat are found, probably from a circus or zoo.
Sammy, the son of a local farmer, is frightened at first, then, one evening when he is alone in the fields, the creature comes up to him and Sammy realises that the cheetah (for it is a cheetah) is someone's pet.
Sammy discovers that it has cubs. He finds its hiding place and determines to try to save it from the local farmers who would hunt it down and shoot it. He brings rabbits to its hiding place and tries to find its owner. How he does that makes an engrossing story.
Although a fairly short, simple story the characters do come alive. There is Sammy's long suffering mother, his brutal and bullying father and Sammy himself, a plucky but also sensitive and caring boy.
This is fiction in its own right. The story comes first but it has a solid background and gives a convincing feeling of the 1940's showing, for example, the farmers' dread of the War Ag, air raids (in this case seen from afar because this story is set in the country), the reading room in the library full of old men reading the newspapers, the outside toilet. The black and white illustrations also convey much information about the period -- the kitchen with the old range and the way in which people dressed with girls in dresses and boys in short trousers and boots.
A good story with much information about the period.
For the 8 - 12 age group.
This is one of a series -- Mammoth Reads -- "short novels for fluent readers." I would say it is for Key Stage 2.
Roger Fallowfield has a favourite song. It is an American song called "Johnny got a zero." Johnny was something of a dunce at school and whenever his class got their marks from a test the other children would follow Johnny home chanting "Johnny got a zero." Then the war comes and Johnny joins the air force - and becomes a fighter pilot. The Japanese have fighter planes called Zeros. Johnny becomes a really good pilot and shoots down several Zeros and everybody's singing "Johnny got a Zero," but this time it has a completely different meaning. Roger's mother says it is rubbish because dunces do not get to be fighter pilots but Roger still likes the song. He can identify with Johnny because he is hopeless at school too. Indeed, in the words of his own mother Roger is "a little bit daft."
Roger lives in a village. He is nine when the war breaks out and twelve when this incident takes place, in 1942. Roger has always wanted to be in the War. He once tried to join the Infantry because some one had told him that children could join. "That's why it is called Infantry." But all that happened was that he was chased down the street by a big sergeant.
Then one evening Roger gets his chance to play his part in the War effort. He comes across a barrage balloon which has broken free of its moorings. It could bring down an aeroplane or it could drift and damage buildings and even kill people. Can Roger do anything to stop the balloon drifting? It will be difficult and dangerous. Can Roger get his own personal Zero?
As well as this story about the barrage balloon this book also has much detail about wartime Britain - rationing, the blackout, land girls, American servicemen.
Told in the first person in a very chatty way by Roger.
Amusing, entertaining, enjoyable and, at the same time, exciting and informative. Super.
7-11
This book is about a boy growing up in an English village during the Second World War. Much information about the time is trickled into the story: air raid shelters, gas masks, rationing, evacuees, and the arrival of the dreaded telegram.
The illustrations tell almost as much as the text. The clothes of the time stand out prominently with little boys in short trousers and braces and the boy's mother in a dress and seamed stockings.
The theme of the book is fear. The boy (we are not told his name) is afraid of the school bully. He makes friends with a pilot. He is convinced that the pilot is fearless but he finds out that this is not the case. Beneath a careless front the young pilot is really terrified. The pilot is killed and the boy and the school bully become friends. Fifty years later they are still best friends.
"You know - like Britain and Germany. Makes you wonder why we had to fight in the first place, doesn't it?"
Like many of Robert Swindells' books this book has a very strong anti war message.
The story is told simply in the first person. The book is about 10.000 words long. The publishers' note says "Short novels for fluent readers. The best in words and pictures."
The simple style is deceptive. There is a lot in this book: much historical detail about the time and some serious, thought provoking ideas.
Robert Swindells has won the Carnegie Medal with another book.
Age 7-11
This book was first published in 1989. It is for children of seven to eleven and it is about 10,000 words long.
Eight year old Annie Foster lives in a poor part of London. In 1939 she is evacuated to Cambridgeshire. She does not want to leave her mother and is very unhappy but she is lucky in finding a good billet with a farmer -- Mr Wimpole and his wife. Gradually, Annie begins to settle down. She has never seen sheep before and she is frightened of the carthorse but she likes the chickens. She is given the job of feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs. Later she is trusted to shut them up for the night. During the summer holidays, she makes up the sandwiches for the picnic for the harvest workers. She also gleans the fields for feed for her chickens.
This book contains much information about the War -- food shortages, rationing, the blackout, gas masks and air raid shelters, ARP wardens and the Land Army. The special importance of East Anglia is also brought out with the many airfields and, later, American servicemen.
But this book is more than just a fictionalised account of an evacuee. It is also a mystery story. While collecting the eggs Annie chances to look up at the attic windows. She sees a moving shadow. Can there be someone up there? Later she finds out that there is -- the mysterious 'Uncle Bob.' But Mrs Wimpole tells her to keep this a secret. "Careless talk costs lives."
Another time she is late shutting up the chickens for the night and she hears a fox in the wood. She is told that is impossible as a fox is a silent hunter. So if it was not a fox what was it. A number of strange little incidents lead up to Annie making an important discovery -- but just how important it is she does not learn until many years after the War is over.
Told in the first person by Annie.
An interesting story for young readers with a detailed and authentic background.
Barrie lives in a little village in Norfolk
during the Second World War. The War touches his life in many
ways. There are the school lessons interrupted by the air raid
siren when the whole class has to take refuge in the school shelter.
There is rationing and his mother's warning to be sparing with
the jam.
More seriously, there is the ominous sight of the telegraph boy
outside a house, and the bombing of the nearby town of Norwich.
But perhaps the greatest impact the War has on Barrie's village
is the creation of airfields and the coming of the Americans--
who are welcomed by the children for their gifts of badges, candy
and chewing gum, and by their older sisters for other reasons.
An airbase is built near Barrie's house and he is fascinated by
it. There is a big chestnut tree at the top of the lane where
he lives and he spends hours there watching all the activity --
the planes coming and going, the control tower and the windsock.
Then one day, from his vantage point high up in the chestnut tree,
Barrie sees an aircraft fall to the ground in flames. Then he
sees a parachute drifting towards some trees. Barrie climbs down
and races after it. He finds an American pilot trapped in a tree
by the straps of his harness.
Now it is time for Barrie to stop being just a spectator? Can
he rescue the pilot? And can he do so without injuring himself?
This short book of about 10.000 words gives a clear and accurate
picture of wartime Norfolk with its many air bases. Told in the
first person by Barrie many years later looking back on his boyhood.
7-11
This is from the World War II Flashbacks series.
London during the Blitz. Twelve-year-old Ronnie's class has been evacuated to Devon but Ronnie's mother wants the family to stay together so Ronnie is still in London. He has to attend school in the afternoon but apart from that he is left to his own devices. He is bored and misses his schoolfriends. While exploring a bombed out house he meets, and later makes friends with, another boy whom he ends up calling Dusty. Dusty has run away from his aunt. His father is a Spitfire pilot. Ronnie thinks it must be wonderful to have such a brave father. His own father is just an air raid warden.
Then Ronnie gradually finds out that life is not as simple as that. He learns that Dusty has been telling him lies. His father had been a bomber pilot for a year and then his nerve failed him and he could not even get into an aeroplane. What a disgrace for his family.
But what actually is true courage? Ronnie is soon to learn about that himself. Dusty has been hiding out in the stable with the milkman's horse. There is an air raid and Ronnie urges him to run to the shelter but Dusty refuses. He is determined to save the horse. Later Ronald's grandmother tells him about his own grandfather's experiences in the First World War and how, years afterwards, he would sometimes wake up screaming.
An interesting story with an authentic background about the London Blitz. The Anderson shelters, the people camping in the underground, the work of the air raid wardens are all described. There are also some deep ideas for young readers on the nature of courage.
Comes with suggestions for further reading.
7-- 11
Johnny was evacuated to the country but
he did not like it and he pleaded with his mother to let him come
home to London. As this was the time of the phoney war and as
there had been no bombing raids, his mother agreed and so Johnny
was one of the few children in London during the Blitz.
From then on we see the Blitz through Johnny's eyes. His father
is in France -- until the evacuation of Dunkirk. His mother works
in a hotel. His grandfather is an ARP and his grandmother is a
volunteer helper in a Rest Centre. Then there are the details
about the Anderson shelters, gas masks, rationing, the blackout
and much more.
But all this does not mean that the story element is neglected.
Johnny and his friend Mickey get caught in an air raid when away
from home and have to find somewhere to shelter.
Comes with a historical note and a glossary.
This is one of the Sparks series of short historical novels linking with the History National Curriculum Key Stage 2.
It is 1939. Sid Kelly lives in London with his parents, grandmother, sister, and cat -- and bugs which come out of the wallpaper at night. At school they are told they might be evacuated and they practise. They have to have haversacks. Sid's Dad makes them out of old coal sacks. Then the evacuation day is fixed.
Sid has never been out of London before. He has never been on a train before either and when he sees the great steaming monster of an engine he feels both terror and excitement. When the train pulls out of London he sees herds of animals in the fields. He does not know what they are but his sister tells him they are cows. She knows because she has seen pictures of them in a nursery rhyme book.
When they arrive at their destination his sister is lucky. She goes to stay on a farm. But Sid is billeted with the stern and snooty Mrs Abbot. She lives in a house called Orchard Cottage. Sid did not know that houses had names. Mrs Abbot gives him a lot of jobs to do and will not let him out of the house to meet his sister and friends.
Then Mrs Abbot brings into the house a wonderful cake -- a dark, rich fruit cake. But while Sid gazes at it she locks it in the pantry.
This cake is to get Sid into trouble but it is also to solve all his problems.
Told in the first person by Sid in the down-to-earth language of a young Londoner.
This little book gives a good picture of the evacuation but even more it brings home to the reader the dreadful poverty and deprivation of many in the big cities.
An evacuation story with an extra dimension.
Comes with useful notes on the evacuation.
This is a book about a group of children who live in an English village. It is 1939. War is declared on Germany and city children are evacuated to the village and there are clashes between the village children and the evacuees - in particular between Tom and Scouser, but by the end of the book they have worked out their differences.
This is a short book but Robert Leeson still manages to include much information about England at the start of the War:- an anti-aircraft gun on the recreation field, barrage balloons, gas masks, the blackout and, at school, outside toilets and girls in separate classes.
This is a book for very young children and the story is simply told. An introduction to historical novels for the young.
Age 7-11
This is a sequel to Tom's Private
War. It is about 15,000 words long.
1940, the phony war and then news of Dunkirk.
William, the bossy leader of the Orchard Street gang bullies his
friends into forming their own version of the Home Guard. They
parade with their wooden rifles and practise bayonet drill with
scout knives and a Guy Fawks like figure. Living in the country
the War does not affect them as much as it does city children
but they see the exhausted soldiers who have been rescued from
Dunkirk and also the new prisoner of war camp for Italian POWs.
And the realities of rationing and the blackout are always with
them.
But despite everything the boys in the gang fail to realise the
true seriousness of the War although Molly, William's cousin,
brands the bayonet drill as a "stupid game."
Then the true facts of what war is all about are suddenly and
sharply brought home to Tom. First he hears about the death of
a friend of his -- an evacuee from Liverpool who had returned
home and perished, with all his family, in the bombing. But even
that is fairly remote. Then the children see a crashed German
plane and the pilot being burnt to death before their very eyes.
And Tom has even more to think about because Molly tries to save
the German and is reviled by many for her humanitarian attempt.
Later, when his father asks him, "Was Molly right?"
all he can answer is "I don't know."
This is a story with a good background of wartime Britain but
basically it is about a young boy struggling to come to terms
with the realities of war.
7+
This book shows the extent of the bombing of Liverpool at the beginning of the Second World War. Liverpool was an obvious target because it was an important port and received vital supplies from America
Sheila Speechley lives in the Wirral peninsula, just across the Mersey from Liverpool, with her mother and elder brother Victor. (Her father is in the Navy). Their house is bombed and they have to spend weeks in a rest centre before another house is found for them. Sheila has then to make new friends and get used to a new school. But she copes much better than her brother who is probably suffering from delayed shock. Sheila makes friends with Jean, the girl next door, but Victor fights with her brother Billy.
Billy’s main love in life is horses and, whenever possible, he helps at the local carters’. Billy is especially fond of a large horse named Toffee. It is through Toffee that Billy and Victor eventually end their differences as Victor comes to the rescue when Billy is struggling to calm the horse after an unexploded bomb goes off.
This book certainly evokes the spirit of wartime Liverpool. There are the descriptions of the bombing, the air raid shelters and the rest centre but it is the little things which really bring the era to life. Particularly expressive is the little picture of the box which the WVS lady has brought with spam, Lyons tea, Bournville cocoa, national butter and Heinz soup. Then there is the school where the boys and girls both have separate entrances. And the fact that the boys are all collecting war souvenirs.
The story is made all the more immediate by the fact that it is told in the first person by Jean.
Comes with a historical note, a sketch map of Liverpool and the Wirral and a glossary.
A well told story which certainly brings wartime Liverpool to life.
7-11