Back Home (A Puffin Book)

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The Honourable Beatie Langley The Devon landlady of Peggy and Charlie, Beatie is a warm and welcome presence in the story. Kind, open minded, cheerful, perceptive and generous, Beatie gave away all of her curtains and many possessions to help the war effort – material was in short supply – and happily shared her rambling and leaky-roofed house with several women who were serving in the forces. Beatie, while never openly saying so, clearly knows about Peggy's home situation and after her death she leaves Peggy her house on condition that Peggy can't sell for 17 years nor can the house be held in a man's name, thus giving Peggy a way to escape her marriage if she wants to by preventing Roger forcing Peggy to put the house into his name. Beatie shows how some people adjusted well with proper British spirit to the trials of war. She dies of her "ruddy indigestion" which is likely to be stomach cancer.

Back Home (TV Movie 2001) - IMDb Back Home (TV Movie 2001) - IMDb

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. Michelle Magorian is undoubtedly one of the pre-eminent children’s writers of historical family drama and of books set around the Second World War. She may not be a household name but that’s purely because she doesn’t write as frequently as those more obvious bestselling novelists. Just Henry is her seventh novel. Unlike some authors Magorian writes when the time is right having first undertaken considerable research, followed by a lot of thinking time before actually putting pen to paper and then there’s always the very important rewrites to polish the story. Magorian loves the research and the writing in equal measure but particularly loves writing dialogue. There is a telemovie of this starring Hayley Mills as Peggy. I watched it all on You Tube, and it captured some parts of the book much better than my reading of the book did. Judith Poole is both old-school-mean-girl and earnest, for example.

About Michelle Magorian

Guardian Children's Fiction award-winning Michelle Magorian is the author of the iconic war-time children's book, Goodnight Mister Tom.

Michelle Magorian - Back Home - Available Episodes - BBC Michelle Magorian - Back Home - Available Episodes - BBC

One day, on a trip into town, Rusty overhears some boys calling one member of their group Yank, and she begins talking to him, not realizing that speaking to boys is against the rules. For this infraction, Rusty receives a discipline mark and is called up in front of the whole school and publicly humiliated. The next day she receives the sad news that Beatie has died. Feeling sad and alone, that night, Rusty discovers that she can climb down some scaffolding outside her window, and escape into the woods surrounding the school, feeling free for the first time since arriving in England. She manages to get a note to Yank on her next visit to town, telling him where and when to meet her that night. Also, what was the point of Ivy's character? Other than being a sort of parallel of Peggy, she didn't add anything to the start of the story, and then later we hear her melodramatic tragedy and then we never hear about her again. What was all that about? Oh and finally, there were way too many characters either being referenced or introduced at the start and it took me ages to remember who anyone was. Lance A fellow sea evacuee of Rusty's, Lance attends the boys' school near Rusty's and is also ostracised for his American accent and behaviour. He provides Rusty with a friend as he sneaks out to meet her in their cabin in the woods, admires her talent with handicrafts and they help each other with their schoolwork. Lance's parents are getting divorced and to escape the house he goes for long runs in the holidays which leads to him joining the school rugby team and being accepted by other students.

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Michelle Magorian on the writing process behind Goodnight Michelle Magorian on the writing process behind Goodnight

On her return, her family seem like strangers. Her mum is a part time mechanic, her brother wasn't born before Virginia left for the US, and he becomes instantly jealous of her. Her dad is still serving in the war on her return. Virginia's mum, Peggy, had been evacuated to Devon and loves the Estate, and the home she and her friends have created during their time together. No one seems to understand Rusty, except the fun loving old timer, Beatie, who owns the house. Soon though, Virginia is sent to boarding school, and with her mother and brother, must readjust to their life before the war. Their former house is ruled by an unkindly grandmother, who dotes on Virginia's father, and disregards Peggy and her children for a myriad of reasons. At boarding school, Virginia is rejected by her peers for 'showing off' (very Enid Blyton), and by her teachers for being behind in her studies, although she was a good student in the States. About halfway through, Virginia finds a place in which she can unleash her creativity, which leads to the compelling ending. 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. Interestingly, Magorian’s first love when she was younger was to be an actress but she also loved writing and day dreaming – the perfect combination for a successful novelist. 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. Her ambition was always to become an actress. After three years of study at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, she spent two years at Marcel Marceau's L'école Internationale de Mime in Paris. From there she launched into a professional acting career and spent a few years touring all over the country - from Scotland to Devon and then Yorkshire - working in repertory companies, taking any part she could. Michelle's worst stage part was playing Orinoco in The Wombles musical. All this time she had been secretly writing stories. When she was 24 she became interested in children's books, and decided to write one herself.The main issue I had was that Rusty mostly came across as a spoilt brat. Because she has spent the war in America, she is horrified by how poor the people in Britain are and looks down on them for it. Kinda hard to get behind a hero who acts like that. There seemed to be a theme of hypocrisy throughout the novel, particularly shown by Rusty's hatred of English patriotism and snobbery, while being arrogantly patriotic and snobby about America. Hypocrisy isn't a very fun theme. Also, the hypocrisy of Rusty thinking her mother wasn't ladylike because she was a mechanic and Peggy thinking her daughter wasn't ladylike because of woodwork never rang true for me. 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.

Back Home – TV Drama 1990 - Michelle Magorian Back Home – TV Drama 1990 - Michelle Magorian

But it doesn't fell like home. Rusty's mother is like a stranger, her little brother doesn't know her and why does the food taste so bad? Rusty just can't get used to the rigid rules and rationing and her strict new boarding school. I felt like the ending was a bit too tidy, but this is a YA book and geared for a younger audience--and it was originally published in 1984, so I had to take that into effect. One day Rusty meets a boy, Lance, from a nearby school who was also a US evacuee. She discovers that Lance lived in the same town as her US grandparents, the Fitzes. For the first time since returning to England Rusty feels happy and connected with someone who understands what she's going through. Unfortunately, talking to boys is strictly forbidden at Benwood, and Rusty is severely punished. Despite this, she manages to pass a message to Lance to meet her at midnight behind her school. From then on Rusty includes Lance in her nighttime forest wanderings and the two become friends. One night they stumble upon a bombed-out cottage that has an intact, albeit bare, sitting room. Rusty dubs the room their 'cabin in the woods'. Here at Lovereading4kids we urge parents and children to try out the wonderful writing, experience the roller-coaster of emotions you’ll get from reading a Michelle Magorian novel. We’re confident you’ll be swept up into a time and place that should never be forgotten.

The character of Beatie, and the character of Beatie's house, is simply magic! I would love to have a hug from Beatie. She is insightful, intuitive, but most of all, does not ruin the story by telling people specifically all the things they could or should be doing, she gently guides them that way.