The Home Front

The Unwelcome Angel

 

   

Adult 

Living with diphtheria, The Bevin Boys.   

Harry Bowling Conner Street's War

Adult 


There is an authenticity in the text that make these scenarios real for the reader. 

Deborah Burrows Ambulance Girls at War 

Adult



There  are some authentic scenes abut young women driving ambulances in London but also a story of espionage.

Catrin Collier Past Remembering 

Adult  

Some useful information about civilian life. 

Michael Foreman War Boy 

Key Stage 2 
  

'I woke up when the bomb came through the roof. It came through at an angle, overflew my bed by inches, bounced up over my mother's bed, hit the mirror, dropped into the grate and exploded up the chimney.' The Second World War is an exciting time for a young boy growing up in a small town in Suffolk - sometimes far too exciting! Life during wartime is vividly brought to life in this personal story filled with childhood memories - from hiding in air-raid shelters to playing in the bombed-out ruins and the arrival of American soldiers. War Boy is a modern classic that combines a touching personal story with factual information and wonderful illustrations.
It will probably suit very well those junior school students who like to browse through non-fiction books. The illustrations are superb.

Trevor Forest Peggy Larkin's War

Key Stage 2 



 London 1939 and the city’s children must be evacuated to the countryside to keep them safe from the German bombs. After a tearful goodbye at the station, Peggy Larkin is sent to live with strangers in the country, unsure if she’ll ever see her parents again. Peggy meets the ultra strict Mrs Henderson and does her best to fit into country life. But what secret lies behind the locked door in the big house? Who is the man hiding out in the woods? Peggy finds a friend in Alfie, another London evacuee and together they try to solve the mystery.
 

Juliet Gardiner The Children's War 

Adult, easy read, non-fiction 

Published in association with the Imperial War Museum, a lavishly illustrated account of how the Second World War impacted on the lives of children. This book is published to accompany the major exhibition in 2005 to be held at the Imperial War Museum on the lives of children during World War II. It looks at the evacuees who were forced to adjust to separation from family and friends; and those who stayed in the cities to endure the horrors of the Blitz. It describes in words and pictures every aspect of life on the home front for children - through letters, diaries, drawings, posters and photos, plus numerous vivid first hand accounts. The result is a supremely nostalgic and poignant reminder of what the war meant for the innocent children caught up in it.

Norman Longmate  How We Lived Then

Adult / young adult  

 A detailed discussion and description of some of the circumstance facing people in Britain in World War II. There are many useful photographic illustrations. 

 

Micky Mitchell A Country War: Memoirs of a Land Girl  

Adult / young adult 

This is one young woman's account of workign as a land girl during World War II. It makes an interesting contrast to the way the girls worked on the land in Germany.

Lyn Smith Young Voices

Adults / young adult 

 

This is a big book full of personal and a factual account of what is was like for British children during World War II.

Julie Summers Fashion on the Ration 

Adult 

A book written to support the exhibition of the same name at the Imperial War Museum North. There is a lot of useful information about how people coped with rationning and shortages. A very factual book with lots of references to other works.