By Susan Hood
4RBooks: 6/6, grades 5-8
Amazon rating: 4.7/5, grade level 3-8
Good Reads: 4.2/5
Common Sense Media: not yet reviewed
275 for the story, 326 pages including appendixes with historical notes and photos.
Synopsis:
It is 1940. World War II has started in continental Europe has started but has not reached England yet. Still, food and goods are being rationed and families are preparing for the worst. 13-year-old Ken Sparks mother and father have signed him up for a special program where selected 5–15-year-old children are being sent away to safe countries, Canada, Australia, etc.
Soon after the bombing of London starts, Ken finds himself on the SS City of Benares heading across the Atlantic. There are 90 children on board making the trip. They are being cared for by Father O’Sullivan, volunteers, and the crew. For the first few days, life is wonderful. There is plenty of food, lots of games and toys, and a whole ship to explore. There are daily lifeboat emergency drills, just in case, but everyone is sure, now that they are over 500 miles into the ocean, that they are safely on their way.
One night, everyone is awakened by a loud blast. Their ship has been torpedoed. The children and other passengers scramble to get to their lifeboats. Ken runs back for his overcoat and misses the lifeboat he was assigned to. Instead he finds himself on lifeboat 12 with 5 other boys, 6 crewmen, over 30 Lascars (Asians hired to work on the ships), and one woman, Aunt Mary. They have food for a month, but only water for 8 days. Working together, they must either find their way home, or hope and wait for a rescue.
Parental Guidance: medium-low
Children being shipped out of England to avoid the bombing and war.
City being bombed, children and family hiding in shelters.
Ship with the children torpedoed.
40+ people stranded on a lifeboat for 8 days in the middle of the sea.
People on the lifeboat suffering from lack of food, water, and diseases like
Trenchfoot and frostbite.
Hospital rumors of crewmen losing fingers and toes from frostbite.
Only 13 of the 90 children on board survive.
Recommendation:
I recently reviewed Harboring Hope by this same author, another historical fiction novel about a piece of WWII history. This is another excellent book. It is based on true events. It has been well researched, including an oral interview with the first-person narrator, and the historical information included at the end of the story documents the events and provides faces and visuals to the details. Children and adults interested in WWII will be excited to read this book.
The novel is written in verse which makes it a quick and easy read, accessible to all levels of readers. There are some darker moments of danger and ill health, but they are not graphically discussed and shouldn’t cause any anxiety or stress for younger readers.
I think this would be an excellent read for a classroom or reading group. There would be ample opportunities for extension activities for gifted and interested students. As a read alone, parents might need to prep the child with some basic information about WWII.
This is another book written for children that I think most adults would enjoy reading, too. I did, and I am looking forward to reading another historical novel by this same author.
