Carrie's War

A poignant and realistic picture of what the second world war was like for a child . . . Carrie's War captures the true reality of war for a child, and it doesn't sentimentalise war
A very touching, utterly convincing book about three wartime evacuees billeted to Wales. It's very much a children's story, with a mystery to be solved, but Nina Bawden is very subtle with her characterisation - even hateful Mr Evans with his cruel bullying is seen as sadly pathetic too. Carrie and her little brother Nick are a delight, but my favourite character is their friend Albert Sandwich. He might sport steel spectacles and have a few spots on his chin, but he's one of the most charming boys in all children's fiction
Delicately done, full of accurate and unsentimental understanding
Perhaps the best of Nina Bawden's excellent novels
Always an important book, but even more so now with the refugee and asylum seeker crisis that brings the book new relevance
What a deep, dark, deceptively simple, brilliant novel it is
'I did a dreadful thing, the worst thing of my life, when I was twelve and a half years old, and nothing can change it'




When the bombs rain down on London, Carrie and her little brother Nick are evacuated to a small town in the Welsh hills. Away from their mother and everything that is familiar to them, they must take refuge among strangers. Reluctantly, Mr Evans, the grocer, takes them in, with his kind, timid sister, Aunt Lou. But the children find little comfort in his austere home.


Their fellow evacuee, Albert, is luckier, living in a rambling old mansion with Hepzibah Green and Mister Johnny. Hepzibah is rumoured to be a witch, but the children feel safe in her warm kitchen, spellbound by her stories. Just as Carrie and Nick begin to settle into their new life, something happens that tests their loyalties: will they be persuaded to betray their friends?


'A deep, dark, brilliant novel' Emma Carroll