by CATHY FAULKNER;
An Adventure Book Review by Erin the Literary Cat©, International Book Reviewer.
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AUTHOR: Cathy Faulkner
Cover art by: Harry Goldhawk
Published by: Firefly Press
Paperback Publication date: 4 May 2023
Paperback ISBN: 9 781 915 444 110
Cover price for Paperback £7.99
Pages: 279
Age range: 9 - 12
Any
companion creatures? No.
SPOILER ALERT
Some as to plot direction and characters.
Thank you to...
We are exceedingly grateful to the team at Firefly Press Publishers (and NetGalley) for the privilege of getting to Read & Review this much-anticipated book before publication and for allowing us to share examples of the text.
As ever, our views are our own, and we only share reviews of books we like and feel our readers deserve to know about and that we hope they will enjoy.
A little extra info before we start: The book follows diary-like entries rather than numbered chapters and runs from December 1940 to June 1941. And depending on the story's needs, sometimes the entries skip days or weeks.
The plot
Our book opens on Wednesday, 3rd December 1940.
12-year-old Bonnie (our protagonist) lives with her mum, dad, and elder brother, Ralph, on a dairy farm in the west of England. Ralph, aged just 19, has been accepted to fly for the RAF. The whole family are very proud. Bonnie, though, also wants to be a hero. Why can't girls and women be heroes too?
With Ralph away, Bonnie's parents decide to take in, billet, someone from another part of the country. It could be a child or maybe a 'land girl', one of the many women to take the place of the men in the fields. The last thing Bonnie wants is a boy, or heaven forefend, a shirker – a conchie, aka a conscientious objector. Nobody wants one of those.
When one Mr Fisher arrives soon after, in RAF uniform, Bonnie is unimpressed. The home's routine is necessarily changed, but Bonnie is to ask no questions and just do what Mr Fishers wants. But all he does in the day is sleep and read by the fire. So why, she wonders, is he billeted at their dairy farm. He isn't to help anywhere else or on the farm, and no aerodrome or squadron is stationed nearby?
These thoughts nag at Bonnie, but life moves on. With an extra mouth to feed and less help on the farm, Bonnie gets conscripted to do her bit for her family and country. She has to help DIG FOR VICTORY.
Gardening is not Bonnie's thing. Digging garden trenches just does not seem of worth. She only did a morning of digging and would have readily swapped the spade for a gun. She wants to be a hero. She wants to be like her brother and not like Mr Fisher, who sits and does nothing.
Rumours start to fly around school that 'stay at home' Mr Fisher is a coward or a conchie. Maybe he's a German spy? Worse, they brand quiet Bonnie the same!
Whatever the truth of it, the taunts by the other girls and boys soon wear down Bonnie's best pal, Carol. Fed up with herself being taunted for siding with and defending quiet Bonnie, Carol soon caves in to popular childish beliefs, saying that it is possible he's a conchie.
Now with no friends in the village, Bonnie is determined to find out EXACTLY what Mr Fisher gets up to when he goes out in the evening and returns before dawn. She wants to find out what he does, get proof he is playing his part in the war, and then win back her friends.
From here on in, the plot unfolds quickly. There is an alarming discovery, uncertainty, new shoots of life and bad news to shake the family to the ground. Resolve will be stretched, unlikely friendships made, friends lost, and true heroism discovered.
At the centre of this all will be a 12-year-old girl struggling to make sense of things and a world exploding around about her. The outcome I shall leave for you, dear reader, to discover for yourself. You will NOT be disappointed.
So, what did we think?
A beautiful, heartwarming story, so lyrically told and powerful enough to raise a tear and a cheer.
Dealing with the realities of wartime from a home perspective is not easy.
To do it eloquently, factually, and yet maintaining a flavour of the camaraderie of the time, without sounding like propaganda, and also the fear, doubts and misconceptions, is a challenging task. Especially when it is for a middle-grade audience who will have little or no awareness of the times, motivations and struggles.
I really can not praise this tale enough. Yes, there is a good overall vibe to the story. But it is a snapshot of a short period, a lone girl, her family, and multiple conflicting thoughts, understandings and priorities that could happen to one of us. There are home truths aplenty to make the younger reader and their families/ teachers think. War is seldom kind, at least for some, no matter the intention or outcome. I believe this is why Mrs H shed a tear.
The writing style, the lyrical way in which the story and text quite literally dances, flies and weaves across the page, makes this tale so fluid and thus just that bit extra special. Just have a look at the pages below. The words literally do reach out, call out and float along. . . .
We read this over two days and would not have missed it for the world.
So . . . .
Crunch time.
I don't think you will find an abler story out there today than this. It seems only now, 80 years afterwards, that the impact of the war on children has been explored for the child reader.
A worthy and warming short read that should be on your 'To Buy list'.
Want to buy a copy?
To get a copy, and we hope you do, fly in to your local independent bookshop (muddy wellingtons, trowels and spades may well be frowned upon). There are plenty out there, and each shop is just waiting to serve up whatever kind of mystery, fun and adventure you desire.
Cathy Faulkner's web page can be found HERE or type this: https://www.cathyfaulkner.co.uk/
Firefly Press's web page can be found HERE or type this: https://fireflypress.co.uk/
Harry Goldhawk's web page can be found HERE or type this: https://www.harrygoldhawk.co.uk/
And as this is the Sunday Selfie day, we are joining the Selfies Blog Hop hosted by our American blogging pals, Janet Blue from the Cat on My Head Blog. To join in and hop around the globe and see all manner of companions and delights, just CLICK this LINK to head to janet Blue's page.
Click the individual links/images below to visit folk....
I shall leave you with a copy of none other than me (obviously) with my ear to the ground listening out for more good books to review! 🙂 🙂
Till laters!
ERin
