What a treat this book was, following 4 friends from their time at school until the end of WW2. Each of the characters was well defined and their motives for all their actions were plausible and absolutely fitted into the world Gavin has created.

The mix of fact and fiction worked wonderfully and I found myself crying at more than one part. A great example of a book nominally written for a younger audience but being fresh and exciting for an adult reader.

This book is about four boarding school friends in England in 1937, through the build up to war and the war itself. All the girls have absent parents for a variety of reasons and each girl narrates part of the story. At times it takes a while to understand who is narrating the story but this does not deflect from the message of the book. This message I feel is first and foremost about tolerance, tolerance of people who are different and of what they believe in. It also explores how fascism became popular in Europe and the warning signs about fanaticism.

The author generates a feeling of apprehension and fear for the characters, the details of the violence that is observed is not graphic but feelings regarding what has been seen is discussed. There is romance in the book.

It is a book that will appeal to teenagers who enjoy Elizabeth Wein's books.

Unfortunately I really struggled to engage with this book and ended up giving up.
I have been in a bit of a reading lull, so it might be that, but I didn't find the book engaging enough to continue.
Thank you for the ARC.

A really wonderful read following the stories of four friends through WWII. I enjoyed the seeing the war from differing experiences and seeing how each storyline developed. Perfect to recommend for KS3 readers

Not a story for younger children- sensitive themes.
As an adult, I thought the story was poignant, beautifully weaved together with threads of history and fiction. The story is told in 4 voices: 4 girls who become women over the course of the book, travelling from English boarding school to different roles in World War 2, both in London and Paris. So many themes and topics of world war 2 are interweaved: Dunkirk, Kristallnacht, holocaust, French resistance, Nazi sympathisers, air raids, patriotism, evacuation, spies.
The only difficulty was figuring out who was narrating each chapter which could be a little frustrating, and jumping between threads of the story. The story has tragedy and loss and so is not recommended for primary school (maybe a mature year 6 might be ok with it, but it’s more suited to secondary pupils).

I loved the sound of this book when I read the describe, it seemed to hold everything I look for in a novel - relatable characters, strong storyline, and linking to a party of history that children study in school. I have to say I was slightly disappointed with the quality of writing in the first few pages but I persevered in the hopes it would improve. Then I read a line referencing someone losing their virginity, for the age I had hired this was aimed at this is totally inappropriate and not necessary. So I am afraid I have given up reading this book.

What a wonderful book. Writing from so many different perspectives could have been difficult to follow but this was done by following the paths of a group of schoolfriends. It was easy to follow who was talking and how the events leading up to war were seen by and affected them. Perfect history based book for older children.

This book has so many good things going for it. It interweaves the stories of the four main characters really well. By having four very different viewpoints, Jamila Gavin has been able to show how the war impacted multiple communities. I have spent a lot of time through my primary teaching role, focusing on the Home Front and how the war impacted those in England, and through my own research, I have learnt how it impacted those who were sent to the concentration camps. However, I have never really considered the experiences of the countries that German actually occupied and how the citizen's there coped under Nazi rule. This book opened my eyes and my thoughts to that. It was really well told, helping me understand the fear that some people felt, the disbelief and denial of others and the actions that people took to protect themselves and those they loved. In places the story is very dark. It talks of Nazi sympathisers on British soil and of the treachery of those living under Nazi rule. It also doesn't have an entirely happy ending for all of the characters, so I would think very carefully about whether all the children in my Year 6 class would be able to cope with that. I think it would make a great addition to any World War 2 collection of books and I was fascinated by the bravery and resilience of the characters.