Attain The Evacuee Christmas Depicted By Katie King Delivered In Leaflet

heartwarming story of friendship and family during the first Christmas of World War Two,

Autumnand London prepares to evacuate its young, In NoJubilee Street, Bermondsey, tenyearold Connie is determined to show her parents that shes a brave girl and can look after her twin brother, Jessie, She wont cry, not while anyones watching,

In the crisp Yorkshire Dales, Connie and Jessie are billeted to a rambling vicarage, Kindly but chaotic, Reverend Braithwaite is determined to keep his London charges on the straight and narrow, but the twins soon find adventures of their own, As autumn turns to winter, Connies dearest wish is that war will end and they will be home for Christmas, But this Christmas Eve there will be an unexpected arrival I love books set around the war years and this was a lovely story about London children being evacuated to Harrogate.
I could feel the tension as the children were waiting to be chosen and felt so pleased when the twins were taken to the local vicarage with a lovely couple.
Their aunt who was expecting was also chosen to stay there,

I loved the friendships and squabbles and the life lessons learnt whilst the children were there, It must have been a very scary time for some of the children and you want them all to have experienced a welcoming family,

The cover instantly drew me to the book and I would be keen to read more by Katie King,

You feel the real sense of community and how people drew together to get through the tough times facing them, The vicar was a true example of his profession throwing open his doors to those in need and making the time as painfree as possible whilst also providing lots of memories to take away from their time as evacuees.
I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review,

This is a very easy read giving a great feel for the early days of WWII and how it tore families apart with the evacuation of London,
Smashing story. A good descriptive history of life in World War II, must of have done a lot of research,
The storyline a bit slow due to all the description, took me a while to get into the book but an enjoyable read and would make a good Christmas film Culture clashes, and adjusting to a new way of life as innercity London children are evacuated to Harrogate during in.

The characters are well created, and the descriptions of life on Jubilee Street in Bermondsey are atmospheric as the realities of life in war time set in, Similarly, the descriptions of Harrogate are engaging and well created, and you do get a feel for the setting, and can imagine the idea of being uprooted from everything youve ever known, and suddenly being placed in a completely different, rural environment.
Connie and Jessie seem typical children of the era, and it is understandable that they would be worried and apprehensive about going to a strange place, although, they do have the bonus of their pregnant aunt going with them, so they are not totally removed from all they know.

As the book is set right at the start of the war, there are none of the usual London based wartime plots involving bombings and air raids, and instead the children are evacuated early on as a precaution due to the dockyards being a likely target.

The plot is engaging, although it did seem to take a while to really get going for my liking, as we find Connie, Jessie and their Aunt Peggy settling into life in Yorkshire, and, although there likely wound be difficulties with dialects, it did seem a bit over done on the fact that people were having conversations where they apparently had little or no idea of what the other person was talking about.

Obviously, Connie and Jessie are lucky in the fact they have Peggy around, and they are taken in by the kindly local vicar and his wife although their son turns out the be the villain of the peace, however, the story does also refer to the fact that others werent so lucky, and didnt have the best of times.

An easy going, enjoyable read, although, for me, it needed some more depth to the plot, or something to happen, and, personally, I wasnt keen on the cover, as it presents it as a story about children, when in fact it is as much about Peggy and Barbara as it was about Connie and Jessie.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, Twins Connie and Jessie live with their parents Barbara and Ted at NumberJubilee Street in Bermondsey, South East London, and are quite a close knit family, With War looming, the family face a tough decision do they stick together during the bombing, or do they split up for safety reasons, Ten year old Connie is determined to prove to her parents that she can look after her quieter brother Jessie,

They get shipped off to Harrogate in Yorkshire with their pregnant Aunt Peggy and are billeted with the local vicar Roger, his wife Mabel and their troublesome son Tommy.
Enemies and friendships are made but the city children discover that life is a little different to that back on the streets of London, and the Yorkshire children decide that they don't like the newbies taking over their town.
Will life ever settle down especially in the run up to Christmas

I really liked this book, it was heart warming, and written in such a lovely way that I really felt like I was actually part of the story.
If I had one criticism it would be that Christmas isn't mentioned until you've readof the book, and then the festive part is right at the end, and felt a bit squeezed in.
If you're expecting a true festive read, just be prepared that it isn't a start to finish Christmas tale, but nonetheless please don't let that put you off as it's really a lovely book.
I have loved reading this book over the Christmas holiday, The characters are all well formed and Katie is building a following by developing them each little by little, The children i think are interesting and its so nice to see them being guided through life but also showing very much each ones own character, Cant wait to see how they are developed in later books,
Its a very interesting period and part of out history and i have not read much about the evacuee angle before, I found it interesting that the children and adults had not travelled beyond London and indeed Harrogate, It seems impossible these days to think of such limited lives, I also loved the shopping trip that Barbara and Peggy did before being evacuated it gave a real flavour of this experience and seems miles away from the shopping experiences we have today.
I am really looking forward to the next book, I haaaate givingbut I can't truthfully give itI'm afraid, I would say it's aout of, To justify, it's a beautifully charming story and a lovely easyread but it's very poorly written,
Some things that happen are so unbelievable not talking about the more clichéd moments that are entirely forgivable in a book like this but the behaviour change in Tommy, for example, or Barbara's response to his threats.

Some of it is also so overwritten which I don't mind in an easyread, but there is also so much not written about, I'm uncertain if more is revisited in Katie King's other books but a book still needs to wrap itself up and The Evacuee Christmas doesn't do this, It's not cliffhangers, it's just unpolished, There are also mistakes with names and things that look like the book has never seen a redraft,
Also be warned only the last couple of chapters of this book feature anything to do with Christmas so it's not particularly a Christmas read, It's a bit like diehard of the book world
It's a nice evacuee story and I recommend the read, I just can't say it's a tidy, clever or wonderful piece of writing.
I think there is a general misconception about the evacuations during the war, and King does go into that in the book, There seems to be this overall consensus that the majority of people or people in general were happy to accommodate complete strangers for there country, A sense of community spirit throughout the entire country, when in fact the opposite was the truth, Evacuation was forced upon both those being evacuated and those taking them in, obviously there were exceptions to the rule,

The government had been planning a mass evacuation since the earlys and the process, or first round of evacuations was started during, This period is often referred to as the Phoney War, because the expected destruction and loss of life didnt take place till later and not to the extent they expected.
The man in charge of the evacuation, Sir John Anderson, had little foresight about the potential emotional distress and trauma the upheavals would cause, especially in the case of the evacuated children.


Many of the children ended up in the wrong place with insufficient rations and no homes to go to, The children were often lined up like cattle at a market place and people were asked to select them, hence the infamous phrase Ill take that one which already implies a lack of organisation.


Jesse and Connie are evacuated with their fellow school mates, the evacuation of whole schools was quite common, which meant any preexisting problems automatically went with them, In this case the school bully, who has to deal with his own difficult issues at home, ends up on the receiving end of some of his own medicine, On a more serious note, Larrys situation was a common fault of the operation, He ends up being neglected and mistreated, and although there is an adult to oversee and rectify the situation in this fictional scenario, that wasnt the case for the majority of children.


The Evacuee Christmas is about family and friendship, and about sticking together and supporting each other in times of difficulty, Strangers and enemies can become friends in the direst of situations, When push comes to shove we are all capable of showing each other kindness,
I received a free copy of this book courtesy of the publisher

via NetGalley, .