The Second World War

There have been a number of new titles published in this area of history in recent years, as the list below shows. The period is clearly one of great interest to authors, perhaps because of the issues involved. The stories all focus on children's experiences of war, with several based around evacuation and several on the Holocaust itself. This latter is not an appropriate area for your pupils to set their own historical fiction writing in, although reading some of these well written fictional accounts may be an excellent way into the subject. But the Second World War, and in particular the experience of children in the Second World War, would be an ideal location for pupils to write historical fiction.

These titles constitute an excellent resource for pupils to explore the techniques of the writer. And it is not just fiction written for older children that can be useful. It is well worth looking at a good picture book, such as Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Ian McEwan (Red Fox, 1985). The illustrations by Innocenti of a German town at various stages of the war are superb as a starting point for pupils trying to write convincing settings. Personally I would not use the part of the book, text and illustrations, which are explicitly on the Holocaust, to me this section of the book is contrived. But the rest of the illustrations are immensely rich in plot and character ideas.

 

Johnnie's Blitz, Bernard Ashley, (Barn Owl Books, 2003).
Johnnie Stubbs is on the run from the law. Escaping with three-year-old Shirley, a traumatised child suffering from the effects of the Blitz, he meets up with Biddy, a gypsy girl, and her family. Johnnie has things to prove to himself - not least, he must find a way to get Shirley back home.

Carrie’s War, Nina Bawden, (Heinemann, 1975).
Carrie and her little brother are evacuated to Wales and billeted at the home of the bullying Mr Evans and his timid sister Lou. Unhappy at home, they love visiting fellow evacue, Albert, at the farm of Druid's Bottom. Here they meet Hepzibah Green, who knows magical stories, and Mister Johnny, who speaks a language all his own. But then things go wrong and Carrie takes things into her own hands - without guessing the awful consequences.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne, (Definitions, 2007).
This is impossible to describe without spoiling the story. Suffice it to say that this superb book tells of live under the Nazi regime through the experiences of a nine-year-old boy called Bruno.

Safe Harbour, Marita Conlon-McKenna (O'Brien Press).
Two children are evacuated from the horrors of the London blitz to live in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, with a stern grandfather they have never met.

Escaping Into the Night, D. Dina Friedman (2006).
This novel covers an obscure aspect of the Second World War, the underground forest camps where several thousand Jews and other targets hid from the Nazis. The story focusses upon Halina who slips away from the Nazis herding Jews from Poland's Nowogrodek ghetto into mass executions nearby.

Once, Morris Gleitzman (2006).
Holocaust story of a Jewish boy in a Catholic orphanage, who tells himself reassuring stories as he misinterprets events, but gradually comes to comprehend terrible truths, and uses
his stories to protect other children in the care of a Polish dentist in the Warsaw ghetto.

The Summer of My German Soldier, Bette Greene, (Puffin, 1973).
When the train pulls into the station in Jenkensville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen senses something exciting is going to happen. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp. To the rest of the town these prisoners are only Nazis, but to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one of the young soldiers becomes an unlikely friend.

I Am David, Anne Holm (Mammoth, 1989).
The story of a young boy's journey through Europe after escaping from the camp where he had lived all his life. Sea, mountains and flowers, the colours of Italy, the taste of fruit, people laughing and smiling, all are new to David. And David learns that his polite manner, his haunted eyes and his thin features are strange to other people.

Weedflower, Cynthia Kadohata, (2006).
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the US government moved to intern Japanese living in the USA. These events are seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Sumiko, the daughter of Californian flower farmers.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Judith Kerr, (Collins, 2002).
Anna is too busy with schoolwork and tobogganing to listen to the grown-ups' talk of Hitler. But one day she and her brother are rushed out of Germany in alarming secrecy, away from everything they know. Their father is wanted by the Nazis--dead or alive. It is the start of a huge adventure, sometimes frightening, very often funny, and always, always exciting.

A Small Person Far Away, Judith Kerr, (Collins, 2002).
Berlin is where Anna lived before Hitler, when she was still a German child; before she spoke a word of English, before her family had all become refugees. Long before her happy new existence in London. But Mama is there, dangerously ill. Anna is forced to go back, to deal with questions of life and death, to face old fears, and to discover the past which she has so long shut away.

Bombs On Aunty Daisy, Judith Kerr, (Collins, 2002).
It is hard enough being a teenager in London during the Blitz, finding yourself in love and wondering every night whether you will survive the bombs. But it is even harder for Anna, who is still officially classified as an "enemy alien". Those bombs are coming from Germany - the country that was once her own. If Hitler invades, can she and her beloved refugee family possibly survive?

Mischling - Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany, Ilse Koehn

Tom’s Private War, Robert Leeson, (Puffin, 1998).
Tom and his gang know there is going to be a war. Then the evacuees arrive. One of them, Scouser, sparks a conflict in Tom's gang and as the air-raids intensify, the children's battle culminates in a terrifying adventure in a disused mineshaft deep below the earth.

Goodnight Mr Tom, Michelle Magorian, (Puffin, 1991).
Torn away from his deprived family by war, Willie Beech arrives in a strange new world. He has to start living differently with 'Mister Tom'. As boy and man grow to love one another their lives are changed for ever.

The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, Michael Morpurgo (2005).
This novel takes place in 1943, and is set in Devon's South Hams, where English villages were evacuated to make way for American troops to practise for D-Day.

Tamar, Mal Peet (Walker, 2005).
The story begins in the occupied Netherlands in the final winter of the war. A time when civilians are battling against cold and starvation, scarcity of food, fuel and medicine whilst resisting the occupying forces.

Upstairs Room, Johanna Reiss, (Tandem Library, 1998)

Hurricane Summer, Robert Swindells, (Mammoth, 1997).
Jim has a fantastic new friend - a fighter pilot. Jim worships Cocky and looks forward to his every visit, but war changes people's lives and friendship can bring pain as well as joy.

Faraway Home, Marilyn Taylor (O'Brien Press).
Two Jewish children are sent from Nazi-occupied Austria to a refugee farm in Northern Ireland in this award winning and touching account based on the true story of Millisle refugee farm in Co. Down.

Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli (Orchard Books, 2003).
Set in Nazi occupied Warsaw, this is a haunting tale of heartbreak, survival and hope.

Hitler's Canary, Sandi Toksvig (2005).
This book is about the life of a family in Copenhagen under Nazi occupation. The hero, Bamse, and his family are drawn into the resistance through their concealment of Jews.

Fireweed, Jill Paton Walsh, (Puffin, 1972).
The story of two run aways surviving during the 1940 blitz.

The Dolphin Crossing, Jill Paton Walsh, (Puffin, 1967).
Pat and his friend John both know the risks they are running in taking a boat across the Channel in the spring of 1940. But they also know they have to do something to help the British soldiers stranded in Dunkirk.

The Machine Gunners, Robert Westall, (Macmillan, 1975).
'Some bright kid's got a gun and 2000 rounds of live ammo. And that gun's no peashooter. It'll go through a brick wall at a quarter of a mile.' Chas McGill has the second-best collection of war souvenirs in Garmouth, and he desperately wants it to be the best. When he stumbles across the remains of a German bomber crashed in the woods - its shiny, black machine-gun still intact - he grabs his chance.

Fathom Five, Robert Westall, (Macmillan, 1992).
Is there really a spy in Garmouth? Too many Allied ships have been sunk by German U-boats, and why else would there be a radio transmitter floating down the river? Jack's search for the spy begins almost as a game.

Blitz Cat, Robert Westall, (Macmillan, 1987).

Put That Light Out, Jack Wood, (Franklin Watts, 2000).
The Pitt family’s experiences on the Home Front, not quite the Blitz spirit.

Digging for Victory, Jack Wood, (Franklin Watts, 2000).
The Pitt family have had enough of rationing, a humerous and wise take on the Home Front.

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, (Doubleday/Bodley Head, 2007).
This new title gives an insight into life inside Nazi Germany through its focus on the German family who hide a Jew. Reviewer's suggest this is a book for older children and for adults.