I’m fascinated by the London blitz. It was an extraordinary time that brought out the best in people: courage, unity and sheer, unwavering resilience. It’s things like the Blitz (and the BBC! and the British Museum! and mince pies! and…) that make me the anglophile I am 🙂 I’ve read several books about it, saw movies and documentaries and have on my living-room wall, right next to my bookshelf, this famous image of a London library after an attack:
Within the topic of the Blitz, I find the evacuation of the city’s children to the country especially interesting. Don’t you think it’s the perfect fertile ground for a book? City children, half scared, half excited, are taken to adoptive families in the British countryside. I can already see a dozen stories popping-up in my head.
Paradise Barn is a children’s mystery set exactly during the Blitz. In the small English village of Great Deeping life for best-friends Molly and Abigail seems uncomplicated, even with the frequent air-raid warnings and food coupons brought on by the war. But two events will shatter their well-ordered routine: a stranger is found murdered in their village (close to their homes!) and Adam, an evacuee boy from London, has come to live at Molly’s house. Soon the two girls team-up with Adam to solve the mystery.
The plot follows in the footsteps of Enid Blyton but with a modern edge that makes it appealing to adults. In a way it’s also a coming of age story because we see these children process change, grief and The Unknown. At some point for instance, Molly is confronted with the extraordinary concept that sometimes it’s better to tell a lie and that not everything (or everyone) is either good or bad. Moral greyness is one of the toughest parts of becoming an adult: it’s when you start making the tough choices. All these conflicts are subtlety dealt with and at no point does Paradise Barn becomes patronizing or simplistic.
The story also mixes “rich historical detail with suspense and adventure”. I was absolutely engrossed by the vivid descriptions of the air-raids over Great Deeping and the London bombings. In the background, Victor Watson gives us glimpses of the day-to-day life of a small village during WWII (a particular episode involving an invitation for tea got me a bit teary).
Comparisons with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie are inevitable, but if made choose, I’d be in the Paradise Barn team. Somehow I didn’t fell as warmly towards (or as close to) Flavia as I did towards the Molly and Adam. The lovely art cover and the charming map of the village inside also helped create the right “mood” for the story. As other reviewers described it on GoodReads: serene and unpretentious.
Any good recommendations for books set in/about the Blitz?
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August 24, 2010 at 8:01 pm
cbjames
You’re right about the blitz as a source of intersting stories. Of course, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a “blitz” book, probably the most well know. I don’t know of other books, but the movie Hope and Glory is wonderful. The ending is one of my all time favorite movie endings.
August 24, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Alex
Haven’t heard of Hope and Glory but will definitely look it up. I’m curious about Connie Willis’ Blackout. I’ve read good things about it.
August 24, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Teresa C
Among the many praises to the Imperial War Museum (Seriously, not getting a comission, though I got a special place in my heart for free entrance museums), they have an awesome bookstore, thematically organizes. Some of it is online, you can check it for recs here.
August 24, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Teresa C
Oh, you absolutely have to go to the Imperial War Museum in London. I was there in May, I loved it, but nobody seems to quite believe how awesome that museum is. The exhibit about the Children´s War particularly is a total must see and resonates very strongly with this book. But they have incredible exhibits. I loved it, and it was totally different than what I expected a “war” museum ( particularly “imperial” “war” museum) to be like. It was the museum with the strongest sense of history being common life I have ever been to.
On other books about the blitz count me as fascinated as well. Connie Willis wrote a two book series ( well one book split over two volumes, one published, the other coming next month) which time travelling mostly about the Blitz. First volume is Blackout, and All Clear will come out soon. It is impossible to judge yet how good it is, I will let you know when I put my greedy paws on All Clear.
About Paradise Barn, I totally agree, expect that for me Sweetness at the Bottom of Pie does not even come into the same league – I really dislike Sweetness at the Bottom of Pie. Also it seemed so fake, some details seemed historically wrong – no rationing, sweet stores filled, poison ivy!
August 24, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Alex
I’ll be in London soon and will try to drop by the Imperial War Museum, but I’ll give priority to the Portrait Gallery, which has also been on my list for a while.
I’ve heard about the Connie Willis books. Others I’m curious about: Carrie’s War, Friend or Foe and also a non-fiction one, Children of the Blitz: Memories from Wartime Childhood.
August 24, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Trevor
To be fair, though, Sweetness At The Bottom of the Pie is set in 1950, and not during the blitz. It is clearly stated that the sweets in the shop have been there since before the war. Poison ivy was introduced into England in 1585.
Just sayin’ …….
August 24, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Alex
I compared it to The Sweetness more in a recently-read-books-about-children-solving-mysteries-where-the-war-is-a-major-theme kind of way 🙂
I’m still curious about the second book about Flavia and hope to hear more about the bookworm sister…
August 24, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Teresa C
Rationing, particularly sweet rationing did not end with the war. In fact some kinds of rationing were worse after the war than during. Check this out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom
“Sweet rationing ended in February 1953, and sugar rationing ended in September 1953, however the end of all food rationing did not come until 4 July 1954”. They would need ration coupons. And sorry I can not believe any store would be able to keep stocks of sweets for 10 years no matter how awful the sweets – there was a war and rationing, people would have taken it.
Though I would probably not have been as appalled at details like this if I had not gone to the very awesome Imperial War Museum and their Ministry of Food exhibit, but it was really educating.
Poison ivy, maybe it was introduced in the 16th century, but its mention matter of factedly feels very north-american – I certainly never read any really british children´s book, even when children are spending all their time outdoors (Enid Blyton, Ransome) which ever mentioned it! It is exotic. we have poison ivy introduced here, but since it never become any huge pest, I would not be able to recognize it nor know anybody who would. Now nettles, oh nettles is something else.
But those two examples are just examples of how fake-British Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie felt to me. The only friend of mine who read it and is english people who also thought so.
August 25, 2010 at 2:53 am
diane
This sounds like a terrific book. I did like both Alan Bradley books so I think this would work for me as well; thanks so much
August 26, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Alex
Yes 🙂 highly recommended!