Everyone's idea of a smash-hit first novel: full-blown characters to love and hate, moments of grief and joy, and a marvellous story that knows just how to grab the emotions Guardian

Back Home by Michelle Magorian - Penguin Books Australia Back Home by Michelle Magorian - Penguin Books Australia

Rusty’s paternal grandmother is strict, critical and condescending. She intensely dislikes Rusty’s accent, her confidence and her behavior. She also feels Charlie is too coddled by her daughter-in-law and needs to learn to behave like a big boy. This is an older kidlit title -- I've had this thing for the past year or two where I'm focused on novels and non-fiction accounts of the children who were evacuated from Britain to the US during WWII, based on a conversation that was going on with the Betsy-Tacy group. Kidlit fans may recall that Magorian is probably best known for the five-Kleenex Goodnight, Mr. Tom. In this book, Rusty, our heroine, has returned to England after living in Connecticut for most of the war years, and has a variety of difficulties adjusting to her "new" life -- feeling estranged from her mother, not being recognized by her little brother, having not suffered the rationing and shortages along with her UK peers, and generally acting too Americanized to fit in. She has a miserable time at boarding school, until she discovers how to sneak out of her dormitory and go exploring at night. The plot is snappy, if none too profound, and it's a nice look at the details of home life immediately following the war. One odd thing, which I think comes of this book having first been published in the early 1980s, is that the author has stridently included robust mentions of menstruating and bathroom use. They don't have anything at all to do with the plot, it's that thing from the 1970s and early 80s where writers for young adult audiences felt the need to hammer home the point that there is NOTHING SHAMEFUL about menstruating or using the bathroom. Now of course, it just seems jarring. Of course, I probably cannot complain too much about scatalogical focus in books, having just spent half of the previous review earnestly explaining about dog poo ... but there you have it.My gut reaction to a lot of the book is a sort of incredulous "why don't you talk to someone?" And while I understand that Rusty is being thrust into the lingering auras of fading Victorian attitudes when she meets her grandmother and attends school, her mother, Peggy, is shown as becoming one of the "new women" who emerged after WW2, having had to take over men's jobs, and beginning to encroach on men's roles in society as well. Yet whenever Rusty tries to talk to her she reverts to the Victorian attitudes of her in-laws (possibly also her parents). These two different aspects to Peggy don't seem to mesh as well as they could, and, although it drives the plot forward, it does feel a little strained at times. Carnegie Medal Award". 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University ( CCSU). Retrieved 2012-08-04. Perhaps because I read this later in life, but I found it did not have the same aplomb as Goodnight Mr. Tom. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable and resonant read. Having grown up half-and-half in America and England, I found Rusty's struggles at once heart-warming and slightly forced. Modern readers will think that the best, indeed the only, way forward would be divorce, something Rusty mentions to her secret friend Lance in relation to his parents. Rusty doesn't seem at all phased by the idea, perhaps due to her American upbringing. Lance, on the other hands, evinces all the horror that the contemporary Brit would feel at the allegation. This is at once a necessary interlude to indicate to the reader the impossibility of separation at the time, and a well constructed contrast between Rusty's American ideas and Lance's enforced Britishness. This is a great book. It might take a little while to get into, but you'll love it more and more as you read.

Back Home DVD - Michelle Magorian Back Home DVD - Michelle Magorian

I couldn't remember how the story ended, though, so reading it felt new to me. Even though I remembered the main part of the plot, I found myself engrossed in the story and wanted to see what would happen next.Rusty has been in USA during WWII but it is now time to come home to be with her family. However, she doesn't get on with her mother and her little brother doesn't know her. Charlie's depiction, by contrast, is a delight. A four year old boy coping with the introduction of a sister, grandmother and father he never knew he had, as well as the (to him) inexplicable disappearance of his 'Uncle' Harvey. He doesn't adapt well to these changes, and is written in the same sympathetic way as the beloved children of Little Wierwold in Goodnight Mr. Tom. Guardian Children's Fiction award-winning Michelle Magorian is the author of the iconic war-time children's book, Goodnight Mister Tom. Everyone's idea of a smash-hit novel: full-blown characters to love and hate, moments of grief and joy, and a marvellous story that knows just how to grab the emotions' - Guardian