Summer of the Zeppelin

by Elsie McCutcheon

It's 1918, and Elvira Preston is missing her father who is at war in France. She determines to find an escape from her small Suffolk village, and discovers a ruined house in the woods, where she and her friend Clarry decide to make a hide-out. However, things don't happen as she expects and the summer becomes a very memorable one for her.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, War

168 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1983

About the author

Elsie McCutcheon is a published author of children's books. Some of the published credits of Elsie McCutcheon include Storm Bird (M Books), Smokescreen.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as a kid and remember enjoying it. Bits of it stayed with me for 30+ years so it must have something going for it.

Reading it again this year, it seems to come up a bit short, even as a kids' book. It has plenty of promising elements (Zeppelins, spies, persecuted heroine and sidekick finding a place to escape, unpleasant teacher and his equally malevolent daughter, a long-lost talismanic statue, escaped PoW ), but doesn't do enough with them. Other elements seem very implausible (the way upper-middle class characters benevolently dive into the lives of the heroine and her sidekick, the way the locals quickly forgive main character's attempt to help a German PoW escape ), and others are just ludicrous ( the way the PoW ambles in and out of captivity more or less at will , the spy spots a passing Zeppelin, scales a windmill and signals to it , a statue at the bottom of a well for 100+ years is still clean and shiny ). Still, the main characters had charm and it was engaging enough.
A good lightweight read and a nice bit of nostalgia.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a childish book really, perhaps it is aimed at children? The story was a little predictable but I still read it nonetheless and I did enjoy it in a way it had it's own charm. I wouldn't recommend it to an adult though. Oh and also it is really really old fashioned, if you like that kind of thing maybe it is for you.