I just finished the audio book The War that Saved My Life
The book is set at the beginning of WWII. It’s a coming of age story and juvenielle fiction. As you likely know…things I love. The story starts in England as people begin to anticipate bombings and consider the safety of the children living in England. Sadly one girl in London, Ada, along with her brother Jamie live with an abusive mother. The mother plans to ship Jamie away but plans to keep Ada with her-not because she loves Ada or wants Ada. She believes no one will take Ada because she has a club foot. Ada finds strength and decides if her mother isn’t going to send her, she’ll simply run away. The story is so good. I absolutely loved it.
Here’s what Amazon had to say, “Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.
So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?”
Amazon readers give the book 4.8 stars. I highly agree. I absolutely loved the book. This is a book I would have definitely read aloud to my kiddos when they were small.
Hi Jo, I just finished reading this book to my nine year old grandson who is blind . He loved the book in the beginning but at the end found it somewhat upsetting and hard to think there are women like Mam I this world. I think maybe he was a bit young to understand the complexities of it. I spend a lot of time explaining things to him because it is hard to understand things when you are blind. God put this little sweetie in my life for many reasons he sure has taught me more in the last nine years about excepting the little things and enjoying every moment. But back to the book I really loved it too and since I had a father and uncle. I that war I am always interested in reading about it. Now I am looking for some army tanks and models of the war world two airplanes so he can feel what they are like.
Hope that you are feeling well. I follow your blog but don’t comment often.
Wishing you the best in your up coming treatments . Sandra
You might like this series. It starts with the book, “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery.” There are now about 7 books in the series. Here is the Amazon description from the first book.
It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”