Changes

Ah. I loved this post-war story of rationing and childhood and the after-effects of war. It's beautifully-written, short and to the point, with sparkling, pithy dialogue and a tense plot. The grey world of rationing and hardship is described perfectly and readers will come away with a very good idea of what it was to be a child in days before TV, iPods and the internet. I doubt many of today's children have imagined a school so cold that pupils need to do some exercises before each lesson starts, just so their fingers are warm enough to write. Swindells adds all sorts of little details (and gives a handy glossary at the end) from bulls eye sweets and novelty songs to much more serious things such as Albert Pierrepoint, the famous hangman, and the Nazis' Final Solution. Mostly, though, I loved the way Swindells leads the reader one way at the beginning but is really taking his readers somewhere completely different.