It is 1940 and Anna, 9, Edmund, 11, and William, 12, have just lost their grandmother. Unfortunately, she left no provision for their guardianship in her will. Her solicitor comes up with a preposterous plan: he will arrange for the children to join a group of schoolchildren who are being evacuated to a village in the country, where they will live with families for the duration of the war. He also hopes that whoever takes the children on might end up willing to adopt them and become their new family--providing, of course, that the children can agree on the choice.
MY THOUGHTS:
This is the best juvenile fiction I've come across in ages.
The three Pearce kids aren't terribly upset to have lost their formidable grandmother who kept them at arm's length, but it is World War Two Britain and they are now orphans without a guardian. Their family solicitor sends them out to be billeted in the countryside to fare the best they can until they are old enough to step into their inheritance. They can only hold their breath and hope that wherever they end up, they'll be allowed to stay together.
9-year-old Anna longs for a forever home with someone who really cares, yet meanwhile she's learned the effectiveness of a good story book to help her through life's rough patches. 11-year-old Edmund, with his strong sense of justice, discovers putting up with duffers and jerks is an unpalatable sort of wisdom he's forced to swallow. And poor William, who is 12 at the start, cannot remember a time when he hasn't had to call the shots for all three of them. He just wants to pass the responsibility onto somebody who isn't winging it, but senses things are destined to get far more intense for him before they ever get easier.
Their paths cross with the Forresters, whose malevolent twin sons have the wool pulled over their parents' eyes, and Mrs Griffith, who's so worn down with the cares of daily life that she's all rough edges.
Meanwhile Nora Müller is a young village librarian who keeps her head down, because she has a suspicious sounding surname. Her German born hubby went off to check on his relatives at home and never returned. While Nora grapples with intense alienation and loneliness, she's deemed inappropriate as a guardian of billets and not even approached to board any kids from London.
It's super satisfying to see home comforts finally being lavished on the very people who are way overdue for them, matching the style of Anna's current story, A Little Princess. I guess the plot contains some predictable and conventional twists, but since they're the ones I love most, I lapped them up. Warm, nourishing food, steaming hot chocolate and piles of books can keep coming, in stories and in life. I'm sure the author, Kate Albus, winks at herself when she has Anna asks Nora, 'Why are there so many stories about orphans?' since she's just added yet another.
Overall, I think this is one the young at heart will love as much as the genuinely young, and since I read it straight through on a lazy Saturday, I must tick the bill.
(See my review for her more recent book, Nothing Else But Miracles.)
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
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