The war that Saved my Life
2015
- ya fiction
- abusive parenting
- brothers and sisters
- juvenile fiction
- world war (1939-1945) fast (ocolc)fst01180924
- fiction
- evacuation of civilians (1939-1945 : world war) fast (ocolc)fst01710188
- evacuation of civilians
- people with disabilities
- children with disabilities
The story
Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?
What it’s like
Quiet, close-third prose that stays low to the ground, tight on a child's perspective: small rooms in a cramped London flat, then the wide, rain-softened green of a Kent village where the air smells of hay, horses and wet earth. The voice is plain and direct, with clipped sentences that open up gradually as the world does, so the book feels like a slow unfolding rather than a rush. Its vibe is wary tenderness, cosy in its countryside scenes but threaded with a steady undertow of fear and shame. It suits a rainy weekend afternoon, a comfort read on a long train journey, or a quiet evening when you want something hopeful with real weight behind it. Domestic cruelty runs through the early chapters: a mother who humiliates and neglects her children, and some harsh physical treatment, all described without graphic detail. Wartime danger stays at a distance, with air raids and spy scares felt more than shown, and there is no gore. Emotionally it is a gradual, earned thaw, a neglected girl slowly learning to trust a reserved woman and to believe she deserves a safe home. It is for readers who want middle-grade warmth with honest hard edges, and for anyone drawn to stories of disability, resilience and found family.
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