When the Sirens Wailed

by Noel Streatfeild, Judith Gwyn Brown (Illustrator)

Rather than stay with a new family, three young evacuees try to return to their home in London after their country host dies suddenly.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, World War II, Fiction, British Literature, Historical, Middle Grade

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Mary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She also wrote romances under the pseudonym Susan Scarlett .

She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.

During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.

In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.

According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.

In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.

Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.

Reviews

[Sonia Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strangely this book has taught me more about the WWII than all the books I have read through the years. Those books dealt with battles, lost and gained territories hardly anything about the civilians, the local population.
In this book, we see WWII through the eyes of the three Clark children, Laura, Andy and Tim. The children are terribly poor to begin with, their Father a dock work has hardly any work and really very little money for anything including food.
Then they are evacuated and live with Colonel Launcelot Stranger Stranger ‘ Sir’ to the children, as well the Elks who work for Sir. This is the first time in their lives that the Clark children have had such good meals, it is not only the food that astounds them but the discipline, the baths, the bedtimes and so many ‘unknown things’ keep them on their feet all the time.
After their stint with Colonel Launcelot Stranger Stranger ‘ Sir’, the children decide they cannot be billeted with Miss Justworthy, so they run away.
It is at this moment that Noel Streatfield excels, gently guiding us through the War, the evacuation, the hardships of billeting thousands of children, she takes us through a train journey with soldiers, we see the huge barrage balloons, we spend a couple of nights at a shelter, where we eat buns. In our desire to see Rose, the children’s Mother we move through a badly bombed London only to find that the children’s house has been flattened and there is no place except at the Rest Centre, a shelter for people who have been 'shocked' by the bombing.
We meet a boy, who loots bombed out shops, then we visit the children’s Mother at a hospital, she has been badly injured in a bombing but is much better now.
Oh yes we see London when it has been hit badly, at its lowest but braver than ever.
The children however have to return to the country, under the care of the billeting Officer Miss Justworthy. Here we meet a family of black marketeers who drag us into their world, where we wonder, ‘is it wrong’ ‘we are not harming anyone else are we?’

The end does seem contrived, but the children have suffered enough.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is quite something. It's a war book written forty years after the fact (which is about when we started getting fiction about Vietnam, I think - forty years later). It's less impressive as a war book - though it has its gutting moments - than it is as a book about poverty. It's really powerful in that regard. Which is saying something, because the time when they're being bombed and don't know to evacuate the train - or when they're being separated from their mother, all the way in the beginning - are powerful themselves.

This is almost more interesting when read as a clash between city and country than as a war book. When the Colonel has them listen to Neville Chamberlain and Andy says -

"Our dad says he would sooner trust a sewer rat nor him," Andy announced.

History shows that Andy's right (and this entire book, written forty years later, is meant to be read with what actually happened in mind - look where the story ends!) - but in this moment, when the Colonel looks at the three children he doesn't want to foster but is anyway, to do his duty - it's very well done.

Incidentally, my cover isn't on Goodreads, but it's got an Edvard Munch-inspired Scream-like little boy on it, which is also quite something.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

We really enjoyed this evacuee story. Vivid descriptions of air raids. Families separated, trying to fit in to new surroundings. We felt the ending was rather abrupt but a good world war two story, lots of interesting historical detail of experiences during the war.

[Stephanie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read about the children who were evacuated from London during the Blitz. It was written in 1974, not quite thirty years after WW2 ended, so the author’s experiences in wartime Britain were certainly brought into the story. I’ll add this to my collection of books about the Blitz!

[Elizabeth]

Air raids, for those with time and the inclination to look, were spectacularly beautiful. The searchlights raking the skies for the bombers were like huge slim icebergs pointing to the heavens. The guns, as they fired, filled the sky with their belching lights and fires started by bombs lit the whole scene with their red glow.

"Cor!" said Andy. "It's like that Guy Fawkes' Night we 'ad before the war."

This is pretty much the kids' version of Streatfeild's Saplings, condensed and polished, improved by desperately poor London evacuee protagonists, and finished off with a relatively happy "ending." (Though it's not the end of the war.) I liked it--enjoyed it much more than Saplings, which it postdates by not-quite thirty years.

It's interesting to see how narrative style for children has changed over the 35 years since this was published in 1974. It's still quite readable, whereas Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes has aged a bit in terms of tone and style. But what I think wouldn't happen in a contemporary children's book, which does happen here, is that (a bit like Lewis with Narnia) the narrative voice is that of an adult--occasionally critical of the children's decisions, or advisory to the reader. We even get the housekeeper's viewpoint thrown in here and there.

But overall, an excellent and accessible vignette of life as an evacuee in and out of wartime London.

[Vicki Antipodean Bookclub · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The searchlights taking the skies for the bombers were like huge slim icebergs pointing to the heavens. The guns, as they fired, filled the sky with their belching lights”
.
.
.
Although Noel Streatfeild might be best known as an author and an actor, her early life was impacted by both world wars. During WW1 she worked in a military hospital and a munitions factory, but it’s her experiences as a London air raid warden during WW11 that really bring a pinch of reality to When the Siren Wailed


This is the story of three young evacuees from London, Laura, Andy and Tim Clark who are billeted deep in the Dorset countryside. They are placed with the Colonel and Mr. and Mrs. Elk who look after him. Their new life of regular bedtimes, nightly baths and meals taken with the Colonel takes some adjustment for all three children, but they soon settle in helped by regular meals and outdoor space. When their Mum’s letters stop coming and their new home is threatened, the Clark children make their way to London to find her


Reissued last year having first been published in 1974, When the Siren Wailed gives a sense of how it must have been to see London during the Blitz and to be in an air raid shelter. Streatfeild also writes about the black market, gas mask fittings and evacuee drills, all building a realistic picture of life during WW11. Although it differs from Goodnight Mister Tom as the children come from a loving home, it shares many of the same qualities. The ending is a little perfunctory, but other than that this is now my second favourite Streatfeild so far (after Ballet Shoes!)

[Kathryn Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edit: I’m delighted to see this book is due to be reprinted in 2022.

Noel Streatfeild is perennially underrated as a children's writer, partly because her books are supposed to all belong to the cloying 'ballet story' genre that dear but lower-standard books like Ballet for Drina do, partly because of the twee marketing of her books, tending to pink soft-focus covers, and original titles replaced with the '- Shoes' branding that makes her catalogue come across as uniformly lightweight series fiction. Partly it has to be said that in her prolific career she certainly turned out the odd lower-effort clunker.

But this, though not one of her better remembered books, is certainly not a clunker. It's a tale of British wartime childhood that approaches the classics of the genre. It has more authenticity and variety to it than the slightly maudlin hurt-comfort-fanfic-esque Goodnight Mr Tom. It has more of a connection to reality than the terrifically fun and surreal The Children Who Stayed Behind. It shares some qualities with Carrie’s War.

Against stereotype, here Streatfeild portrays extremely poor, working-class children.

To draw comparison again with the most famous children's book about evacuation, unlike young Will when sent to Mister Tom, the children here are decent, well-cared-for children of loving parents. Their background isn't cast as deprived in any way except materially and, of course, in terms of safety. Once evacuated they benefit from country living generally and the relative prosperity of their host household in particular, but it's refreshing to read a narrative where the working class kids are not in a spiritual as well as a physical way being 'saved' from their upbringing.

As in Goodnight Mister Tom, there's an Act II trip to Blitz-time London and here it is painted in thrilling, tense, frightening detail in a way it isn't quite there. Streatfeild writes with the authenticity of memory, and also constructs a sequence of events that allows the characters and readers to be introduced to the details of the unique setting one at a time. Her child characters really come to life as they navigate their changed city. For all the many children's books that feature evacuees and Blitz London I can't think of any more convincing depictions.

There's a treat for seasoned Streatfeild fans in the last few chapters. Mention of a little girl named Dulcie arriving on the scene is made. Children with cutesy names in Streatfeild books are always absolute tyrants (unless they are Posy Fossil who is only slight horrendous). But what Streatfeild does with the character is lovely.

Actually, the whole section of Act III where the children are billeted once again in the country, now with Dulcie, her mother, and the pair’s constantly-visiting friends and relations, is rather great. Like the refusal to slip into easy dischotomies of good and bad around class and country/town, Stretfeild also takes what looks set to play out as Good Children children ruled over by a tyrannical, vulgar elder they must somehow vanquish, and instead had that part of the story play as an exploration in learning to get along under difficult circumstances, and understanding one another's point of view. It's an understated study in growing up.

Perhaps the book really deserves something more like 3.5 stars than 4 because while its good qualities are very good, it is slightly held back from being an absolute classic by some parts being a little underdeveloped. Characters like the Elks and even the Colonel never quite spring to life, partly because Streatfeild seems on shakier ground describing country life than she is with London so events play out in more distant and vague narration for most of that first section.

The ending is also a little rushed and could have done with some of the secretive, tense buildup that, for instance, Apple Bough made of a similar conclusion.

But all round a really excellent story that it's a great shame is out of print. When I was a bookseller my most frequent request for recommends asked by 9-12 year olds and their parents was for novels about WWII, presumably because it's covered so heavily in school at that age, and because it remains relatable to modern British children by dint of geography etc. There's always room on the shelves for more great books in that setting, especially those written by authors for whom a war childhood was a memory and not imagination.

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awfully good. One of the only descriptions of poor evacuees to locate them properly within the context of the depression. I think also a very realistic experience of the blitz, from her own experience as a canteen worker and in the air raids. As someone else has said, it's a superb description of the poverty of the period, again, from her experience as a voluntary social worker (the more I read about Streatfeild, the more interesting she seems).

[Shiloah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening ww2 story about three children who are some of 800,000+ children sent out of London to keep safe during the air raids.

[Carolynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laura, Tim, and Andy are evacuated to the British countryside where they find a happy home with Colonel Stranger. Pair with the beloved fantasy _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ or _Good night, Mr. Tom by Magorian, Michelle for a more detailed portrayal of the relocation of children during World War II.

[Morag · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always love a Noël Streatfeild story and have reread several of them many times over the decades. To find one I hadn’t read before was such a wonderful surprise!! (I do always check in book shops because very occasionally there are reprints).
When the Siren(s) Wailed (both of these titles exist, strangely) did not disappoint. The story begins in London just before WW2 in the home of the Clark family. Poor but happy, the Clarks accept their situation because they don’t have much of a choice and also there are people a lot worse off than them. They have each other and the father reminds them that this makes them better off.
Poverty is all around. A potato dinner (a regular meal on the night before pay day) consists of one potato each for the three children with the parents drinking the leftover water!! Clothes are mended on top of previous mends. There’s no space. Their house, like all the others in the street, had been condemned for years. They rely on a pump outside the kitchen door for all their water.
The war comes closer with the arrival of scary and ugly gas masks, then evacuation and all that this entails.
Everything is told in detail but not dwelled upon. There are worries and difficulties but the children fair better than many. We learn about their lives but also the lives of ordinary people in a small village who have dozens of children thrust upon them. Through the arrival of the evacuees, the villagers (and we) learn about the hardships in London long before the war started.
Characters are drawn with warmth and affection, in true Streatfeild fashion. Attitudes and prejudices are there but not laboured. Laura learns to cook and sew while Andy plays football and Tim learns about gardening. The children are safe and well cared for.
Most enjoyable and I’ll definitely be rereading WTSW over the next decades!

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite different to the usual Streatfeild - it was nice to read something less predictable.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A charming tale of three children from a poor family evacuated from London at the beginning of World War Two, and the problems of splitting up families in this way. Streatfeild doesn't gloss over the real troubles of poverty and war here - although Miss Justworthy's reputation for feeding evacuees cat meat is a comic touch, the children experience the loss of guardians and the Blitz first hand. Not even the air-raid shelters provide them a safe place, and Laura, Andy and Tim's quest for a safe, steady home is poignant without being mushy or overstated.
The ending, of course, is happy, with the safe (if one-legged) return of the children's - but I can't help wish that the Colonel had survived instead. As responsible and loving a father as Nobby is, the family could barely afford to eat before he lost a leg, and his ambitions to become a farmer seem a little far-fetched to me. The death of the Colonel, a father-figure with both the kindness and the education and monetary ability to provide the three children with a happy home, saddened me more than the death of Nobby would have.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the start of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, children are being evacuated from London to be kept safe from the bombing of the city during World War II. The movie does a particularly good job of glimpsing the horror of the air raids.

When the Sirens Wailed is historical fiction for children that shows what actually happened during this time period (most children did not find a magical wardrobe at the home where they were placed).

Streatfeild's story includes good historical detail but is actually not cohesively written--fluctuates viewpoints, is sometimes patronizing, ends too neatly.

[Tuesdayschild · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noel Streatfeild can really craft a good, solid story for children about children - I enjoyed it as an adult – and this historical fiction story written in 1974 about WWII in London, England has a very realistic feel to it showcasing the good, and the bad.
This would make a great comparison read alongside C.S. Lewis’ the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
I so appreciated the sense of family in this book and the love and loyalty they have for each other, and that the author created ‘found family’ for the elderly batman and his wife, Mr & Mrs Elk.

Extra: would suggest pre-reading this before handing it to a sensitive child.

[Sula · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A decent children's book set in the wartime. Neither one of Noel Streatfeild's best or worst. The only quality that particularly stood out to me were hints of the hardship of the children's home life and the way it was depicted. Hardship not through lack of love from the parents but through lack of money. It is presented in a fairly matter-of-fact way and not melodramatically which I appreciated, and helped depict the normality of it for the time period.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent children's novel about some London children who were evacuated just before World War II. It really brings home the deprivation they suffered immediately before the war, the problems some evacuees had, and the general feeling of the country during rationing, blackouts etc. The book also shows a great sense of family loyalty, integrity and love, typical with this author. Highly recommended - for children of about nine or ten or above, but enjoyable for adults too.

[Teaspoon Stories · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unexpected acts of kindness always make me blub unmanfully. So when bluff Colonel Launcelot Stranger-Stranger’s bustling housekeeper pays for new slippers for forlorn evacuee, Laura, in “When the Sirens Wailed”, I found tears rolling down my face.

I’m a sucker for stories about the evacuation of children at the outbreak of the Second World War, not least because my own mother was almost evacuated (her parents changed their mind at the last minute) and we still have the little case that she would otherwise have taken with her.

It’s curious that the two most delightful children’s wartime stories were written just months apart in the early 1970s and both focused on the evacuation of London children.

But the way the novels treat the evacuation differs. In Nina Bawden’s “Carrie’s War” the evacuation provides the backdrop - and metaphor - for what is, essentially, the rites-of-passage story of a displaced, middle-class girl thrown into the emotional turmoil of adulthood.

In Noel Streatfeild’s “When the Sirens Wailed”, on the other hand, the evacuation is the story itself - the main protagonist, if you like. The novel takes the form of a pretty factual account of the events at the start of the war and the impact this has on the lives of ordinary people, especially children.

I loved the many realistic details that Noel Streatfeild threads into the narrative, to help explain and contextualise the actuality of the war which by the 1970s might already have been passing into historical irrelevance for her younger generation of readers.

Things described in the novel that reminded me of wartime stories I’d heard myself from older relatives and friends include, at random:

- Gas masks with Mickey Mouse faces issued to children under five (my mother was more terrified of her gas mask than she was of Hitler);

- The endless drone of enemy aircraft at night time (my father lay awake as a boy in fear of Heinkel bombers flying overhead in low formation to bomb Sheffield and Manchester);

- Country folk pestered by government officials checking for unregistered livestock (my grandfather was angry that a neighbouring farmer hid pigs that risked everyone getting into trouble);

- Bomb sites used by children as forbidden adventure playgrounds;

- Sugar and butter rations that turned sweet and cakes into unheard of treats;

- Everything covered by glass shards after bombing raids (my grandparents were hugely grateful that it was only their windows they’d lost);

- Huge barrage balloons tethered in the skies to impede low-flying enemy aircraft (my mother’s schoolteacher told her class they were friendly flying whales);

- Lightbulbs removed or dimmed in public places, making navigation impossible for German spies and natives;

- Road signs taken down or turned around to confuse invading German!

I particularly loved the touches of colour that Noel Streatfeild introduces with the conversations of locals - including the two Cockney women on the bus gossiping about a fearless, nerves-of-steel bomb-disposal officer who was terrified not of sudden explosions but of the sight of rats.

The authentic feel of the wartime setting is also helped by some thoroughly relatable characters, primarily plucky little Laura, an ever cheery and adaptable Cockney sparrow, who follows dutifully and at significant personal cost her mother’s exhortation to look after her two younger brothers no matter what.

I worked out that Laura’s little brother, Tim, would have been exactly my mother’s age. And during the war my grandma helped to run a Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) canteen, just like the kind lady in the novel who gives the children buns and sweet tea when they arrive in London during a ferocious night of bombing (and just like Noel Streatfeild herself who also served in the WVS).

Yet despite the nostalgia, there’s also a matter-of-fact astringency to the writing that prevents it becoming sentimental. For example, the children are no angels - they answer back, don’t do as they’re told, don’t always tell the truth and even steal (though Andy fulsomely repents the stolen watch).

And grown-ups don’t always set the best example, either. They’re not always particularly thoughtful, helpful or reliable, and their own worries and preoccupations sometimes prevent them from seeing the troubles of the world as the children do.

At one point in the novel - as London wakes after one of the most intense nights of bombing, yawns, and puts the kettle on - Noel Streatfeild introduces the Blitz Spirit. But I don’t think she means the cosy patriotism that the term has come to signify today.

Her novel isn’t about great acts of wartime bravery or showy displays. Her characters are mostly just ordinary people muddling on through challenging and sometimes shocking circumstances. She shows Blitz Spirit through their common sense, decency and resilience. And most importantly, through the many small acts of everyday kindness - helping out neighbours in trouble, sharing scarce chocolate rations, lending a sympathetic ear over a cuppa.

Everyday kindnesses that make a difficult world just that little bit brighter and more bearable. And still do, eighty years after the sirens have stopped wailing …

[sgh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just really lost me in the second half, and is so strangely structured. I liked the opening act though.

[Maria Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Streatfeild's Thursday's Child was my favorite childhood book that I read over and over so when I recently discovered When the Siren's Wailed in a used book sale I had to pick it up. I'm not sure that I would have loved this one quite as much even as a child, but I still liked it a lot. Streatfeild's style of writing is different than what I typically read and I don't know enough about English Lit to give the style a name but I enjoy it for its simplicity. The story is dealing with hard things like war, separated families, and deprivation yet it is written in such a way that children can get a picture of what it was like to live through those things without becoming overwhelmed with the sorrow of those circumstances.

The ending wrapped up a little too quickly for me and I wondered if they really did keep such tabs on people by name to know where everyone was all the time and what was happening to them. Maybe they did. I've not researched it at all. Streatfeild was drawing on her own experience in the Women's Voluntary Service so it might be totally accurate.

I really liked the story and was glad to find another Noel Streatfeild book to enjoy.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting story from the evacuees/children's perspective during the London blitz of World War 2. The author does not hesitate to portray the difficulties of poverty and war-torn England. Although primarily a children's fiction author, she also has written a few books for adults.

"When the Sirens Wailed" gives the reader an inside look at the fortunes and misfortunes of family separation, those families who are either eager or reluctant to provide homes for the evacuees, and hardships when communication with loved ones is difficult or impossible during times of war.

I enjoyed Noel Streatfeild's biography ("A Vicarage Family") and "Saplings", a story also set in World War 2 London. "Tea by the Nursery Fire", a memoir of her father's nanny, also gives a picture of what life was like before World War 2. Although the author writes simplistically and realistically (no fancy sentence structure here; just plain language in the London vernacular), she never fails to keep my interest.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found a note about this book in a diary from 1992:

The picture of the mass exodus of children from London in the earliest days of the war as evacuees is very well done, and so is the return by three of the children into the bombed strangeness of the city, but the story just peters out. The most unpleasant character conveniently goes into hospital and really has little to do with the story from then on.
The early part of the book is great, and all the emotions of the kids are well conveyed as are those of the very nice adults they’re billeted with. But the latter half seems rushed, and just falls apart in the last few pages as though she couldn’t be bothered to finish it off properly. Another half dozen pages might have done it better – even another half dozen paragraphs, but the ending is too sudden – I couldn’t believe there wasn’t another page to go; the characters hadn’t cooled off, as it were.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first half or so of the book, until the kids decide to return to London on their own. Children who run away from adults who don't want them around or don't know what to do with them are a constant in Streatfeild's books. They're always ill-prepared for independence and yet somehow everything comes out right in the end. In this tale of evacuees and air-raid shelters, the author's way out of any tight corner seems to be sending the kids to sleep and when they wake up, it's a new chapter and some lovely coinkidink makes it all okay. At least this time the stage struck young 'un is a very minor background character.
Streatfeild's attitude toward the American soldiers in England was certainly different to the many real-life diaries of wartime Britain that I have read, most of whom found the Americans obnoxious, "overpaid, over-sexed and over here."

[scarlettraces · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lighter effort than some of Streatfeild's, especially compared to Thursday's Child which is roughly the same vintage and which I loved. Some nice touches though, including descriptions of the Blitz which presumably come from life.

I haven't done any particular reading on the evacuee experience, but I recommend the relevant section of Penelope Lively's A House Unlocked, which describes what sounds to be a very similar experience of evacuees being semi-adopted by local gentry, and Peter Watkins' The War Game, for a consideration of the mechanics of civilian evacuation in time of (nuclear) war. (Watch the War Game anyway, it's still shocking and brilliant after 50 years.)

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the sort of book that makes me wonder HOW is this not a classic? WHY is it still out of print? An authentic look at the evacuation of London during the WWII. I would probably recommend it to a slightly (smidge) younger age than "The War That Saved My Life" as both follow the same timeframe but without the strong abuse issues (just abject poverty, separation from parents, war and bombings and parents being injured...still plenty of topics to discuss but in a slightly gentler-but-honest tone). This book should be a library staple, not lost generations of children.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just re-read this for the first time since childhood, and it's a lovely book. Written soon after the war, I think it really captures what it must have been like to be evacuated and many of the experiences of London children during the war . Obviously they had a pretty good experience overall and it all turned out beautifully, which probably wasn't the case for many children, but I think its better than many other children's stories I've read set in this era for learning what it might have been like. Going to get my children to read it.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think everyone should read this, preferably during the school years but even as an adult this showed me another more personal side to England during world war ll. Laura, Andy, and Tim are the main individuals in this but they are shown many kindnesses by various individuals of different walks of life. From “the Squire” and his batman and wife, to a random soldier on a train. You get to feel the realness of the war in all of the pages, along with the hope and joy everyone experiences in life, if one looks for it.

[Jane Irish Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

With World War II on the horizon the three Clark children are evacuated to the country, with orders from their mother to stick together. They face that hurdle and find a home with an elderly Colonel and his servants, the Elks. Their father joins the Navy while their mother goes to work in a factory. But when the Colonel and they lose their new home, the children set out to London to reunite with their mother. Very poignant picture of just what life was like at that time.

[P G · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this to my East London Year 6 class in the 1970s. They were rivited. Beautifully written and sensitive without exaggeration. My parents lived in London during the Blitz so I heard all the stories of evacuation and the bombing first hand and this book perfectly represents them. Ideal for most ages except very young.

[Kim Avraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! I listened to the audiobook narrated by Daphne Kouma. She brought the book to life and swept me to 1940s England during the war when kids were sent out of harm’s way in London. A treat for Noel Streatfeild fans, and especially relatable for those of us who know what it means to continue joking after the worst nights in a bomb shelter