LoveReading4Kids Says
Another in the excellent Super Readable Rollercoaster series produced in collaboration with Barrington Stoke, this is the story of Judy, returning to a completely unfamiliar London after five years of evacuation in rural Somerset. Taking a refreshingly different angle on an evacuee’s story, this deals frankly and authentically with the emotional difficulties that Judy faces. The years between nine and fourteen see a huge amount of physical and psychological development and there is an inevitable gulf in the relationship between her and her mother. Her mother is dealing with her own trauma after being bombed out of their family home and understandably jealous of the “aunties” who have shared her daughter’s childhood. Judy is torn between her love of the rural life and her desire to find a true home again. As she searches through the rubble of her old home, while her mother works, she meets a boy facing his own post evacuation difficulties.
Together they are entranced by the way that nature is reclaiming the bombsites and Judy finds clues that help her understand what her mother has been through and what “home” really means. Although aimed at reluctant and dyslexic readers this a book with a depth and complexity that would reward any reader. The glossary and discussion questions that are a regular feature of this series are also an invaluable class or reading group support.
Joy Court
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Out of the Rubble Synopsis
It's early 1945, the War is nearly over and across the country, evacuees are returning home. Judy is excited to be back in London, reunited with her mum. But when she arrives, she finds everything has changed. Her house has been destroyed, her mum seems distant, and her dad is still away with the army.
And all around her, London is different too: there are bombsites on every corner and the danger of war still looms. As Judy explores the city, she begins to see that the bombsites are more than just rubble. Can they help her to remember what her home used to be like? And will she ever be able to get her old life back?
With themes of loneliness, family relationships, and finding out what home really means, award-winning children's writer Sally Nicholls brings to life the experience of living through the Second World War.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780198494959 |
| Publication date: |
6th January 2022 |
| Author: |
Sally Nicholls |
| Publisher: |
Oxford University Press |
| Format: |
Paperback |
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About Sally Nicholls
I was born in Stockton-on-Tees, just after midnight, in a thunderstorm. My father died when I was two, and my brother Ian and I were brought up my mother. I always wanted to write - when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I used to say "I'm going to be a writer" - very definite.
I've always loved reading, and I spent most of my childhood trying to make real life as much like a book as possible. My friends and I had a secret club like the Secret Seven, and when I was nine I got most of my hair cut off because I wanted to look like George in the Famous Five. I was a real tomboy - I liked riding my bike, climbing trees and building dens in our garden. And I liked making up stories. I used to wander round my school playground at break, making up stories in my head.
I went to two secondary schools - a little Quaker school in North Yorkshire (where it was so cold that thick woolly jumpers were part of the school uniform) and a big comprehensive. I was very lonely at the little school, but I made friends at the comprehensive and got on all right. I didn't like being a teenager very much, though.
After school, I got to be an adult, which was fantastic. I went and worked in a Red Cross Hospital in Japan and then travelled around Australia and New Zealand. I jumped off bridges and tall buildings, climbed Mount Doom, wore a kimono and went to see a ballet in the Sydney Opera House. Then I came back and did a degree in Philosophy and Literature at Warwick. In my third year, realising with some panic that I was now supposed to earn a living, I enrolled in a masters in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa. It was here that I wrote Ways to Live Forever. I also won the prize for the writer with most potential, through which I got my agent. Four months later, I had a publisher.
I now live in a little house in Oxford, writing stories, and trying to believe my luck.
Photo credit Barrington Stoke website
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