Hodder Children’s Books ISBN 9781444938906 £5.99
This is the hard-pressed teacher’s answer to prayer, especially but not essentially if they are still including a study of WW2 in their history curriculum: a play about the evacuation, the Manchester blitz and its effects on the lives of all those caught up in any or all of it. Written by Julia Donaldson, it has all the necessary ingredients: lots of parts, short lines that are more likely to be memorised and suggestions for staging and costumes. Whilst the endpoint might be a production – there are rich seams to be mined in terms of developing children’s understanding of a major event in our history and the social mores of the time, together with developing an understanding of the structure of a play and all the skills necessary for a public performance. Thomas Docherty’s illustrations enhance the text and provide a very useful set of reference points for those pupils tasked with staging and costume production. One minor quibble: the introduction suggests that this can be staged, read in class or at home. Why read a play at home alone?
Elizabeth Broad
