Reviews

The distinguishing feature of this brief childhood reminiscence is the setting: World War II. The author was evacuated along with her siblings and friends from Merseyside, in Liverpool, to the heart of Welsh-speaking Wales in order to escape the German bombing. Massey describes the sequence of events and her own emotionsÄshe was seven years old at the time. She was reasonably happy in Merseyside despite certain family tensions; bewildered by the move, she struggles to adapt to her new environment, with her new guardians. Then, while she is in Wales, her father passes away. Eventually she returns to find a "new father," who has his own problems, and must now cope with step-siblings. Certainly the author evokes an era and set of events not often encountered by American readers, along with the difficulties of an average British schoolgirl growing up in horrible times, from whose events she was mostly but not entirely sheltered. She also has a real gift for physical description, and the listener can see the small houses and feel the mud and visualize the various characters. Diana Bishop is a good choice to read a book such as this, taking a rather somber and deliberate approach. The anguish of the adults is always there in the background, and Bishop reflects it even through the eyes of a child. Recommended for public and school libraries.ÄDon Wismer, Cary Memorial Lib., Wayne, ME