So beautifully written and sad. ( )

I had already read -- and loved -- the sequel about Clarry’s goddaughters and WWII (amongst other things), The Swallows’ Flight, so it was interesting to read this and fill in some of the gaps. Clarry is the happy heart of what is often a sombre story. It begins in 1902 with her birth and her mother’s death, and it follows her and her older brother Peter -- and, to a lesser extent, their cousin Rupert and a few friends -- through childhood and school and WWI.

Right from her youngest days, Clarry had understood that all the uncomfortable difficulties of their lives – Miss Vane and the itchy knitting, the uncertain cooking of Mrs Morgan and her kind, the remote unhappiness of her father, the increasing shabbiness of the house, the bread-and-milk
suppers and the desperate fierceness of Peter’s temper – were because she, Clarry, had been born and her mother had died. Nobody ever said it quite as plainly as that, but, if they had, Clarry would have bowed her head and agreed that it was true.
Nevertheless, she hummed when she was drawing. She skipped downstairs in long airy jumps, she stopped to speak to cats and horses, and she was never frightened by Peter’s moods.

McKay’s prose is evocative, effective -- she captures with the absolute horror of war without going into a whole lot of details. Even though I knew from The Swallows’ Flight how some things must turn out, I was still riveted.

(I also came away feeling bleak, but I’m not sure how much that was the book and how much that was me, still recovering from a cold and from the end of term.) ( )

Oh, argh, stupid tearjerker WWI stories. Stupid British, with their endurance, and their core of sorrow that they carefully do not fuss about. It's not a fast paced book, but the characters are vivid and endearing, the war is quite amazingly portrayed -- both the disconnect of the home front and the unbearable situation in the trenches. It's both gorgeous and bleak, and Clarry is a rock to build the world on. ( )

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this book I enjoyed it, but I honestly don't know what age I would recommend it for ( )

Clarry adores her older brother Peter and her cousin Rupert. Their idyllic summers with their grandparents in Cornwall are what keep her going through the rest of the year, living in a cold London house with her distant, disapproving father. However, it's the early 1900s, and the Great War is coming. When it does, it will change all of their lives forever.

McKay is a favorite of mine, but though I enjoyed this book, I didn't feel it was her strongest writing. It has some problematic elements, and I found it generally just a little unsatisfying. If you really love this author, it has all of the hallmarks of her writing, particularly where dialogue is concerned. And if you really want a World War I book for middle-grade readers, this might fit the bill. It doesn't shy away from the realities of war, so your sensitive readers may need some guidance if they attempt it. ( )