Geoffrey Bilson

This is a novel written for young people that tries to explain to children how children felt as they experienced the terror of German bombing of England in the first couple of years of WW II. As well, in the early part of the war, there was an effort to evacuate children from the south of England to countries such as where they would be safe. In Canada they would be billeted with volunteer families for the duration of the war.

In this novel we meet Bob Williams, a Canadian boy who lives in Saskatoon and is looking forward to having a "quest child" which is one of the evacuees from England which will give him a "brother" which he does not have. The boy, David Harris , turns out to have some anger issues because of being a evacuee and leaving his parents a mother in England and a father fighting in the North Africa desert.

The bulk of the novel covers how the boys iron out the conflict that quickly escalates when they meet. The reader is also introduced to the treatment of Jews and especially Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler's death camps by the Canadian Government's anti-Jewish policies.… (altro)