In a regular new feature, Waterstones Bookstore at intu Milton Keynes will be exploring the best new books on the shelves, and sharing what makes them essential reading material with Total MK readers.
We get things started with the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month, January 2019
..Enjoy the gloriously beautiful prose and timeless, classic style of The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay, £6.99
Peter and Clary Penrose live in a cold, thin, austere London house in the care of a well-meaning spinster neighbour and a prickly housekeeper who can’t cook.
Clarry loyally tries to defend their neglectful and indifferent father, who is mostly absent following the death of Clarry’s mother shortly after her birth, Peter rages against the threat of boarding school, and both long for the summer.
“Summer was shining bliss. Summer was opals and topaz and lapis and diamonds flung down from the sky. Summer was Cornwall” when they always stay at their grandparent’s house, running free with their kind, charismatic older cousin Rupert.
Gradually the three are pulled apart as the family saga unravells – Peter is sent unwillingly to boarding school, Clary left at home fighting to get an education, and Rupert enlisting as the Great War breaks out, with their lives changing forever.
As with any book that starts in the early 1900s, there's a sense of inevitability due to our knowledge of the upheaval about to hit the children as they reach adulthood and yet when the war comes it is still as shocking to us as it is for them.
Hillary McKay captures the poignant, golden summers being stolen by the unforgiving march of history. She weaves together the several themes - war, love, sexism and family - in a skilful and unhurried way.
We find out how Clarry escapes the traditional Edwardian female’s lack of education and goes to university; how Peter’s ploy to escape boarding school backfires on him and ultimately leads him down a very different career path, and how Rupert tries to protect his family and friends back home from the true knowledge of what he is going through whilst suffering the pain and anguish of the war.
The war itself is depicted very skilfully. The descriptions of life on the front line are evocative and brutal, portraying all the horrors of war while never being too violent for young readers..
“The line was the shape of a long, lopsided smile. A ravenous, expectant smile. A greedy, unreasonable smile, considering how very, very well it was fed.”
But the effects of the war are felt by the characters who stay in England, too – the family waiting for news of their prisoner father, the anguish of receiving a telegram, the work of nurses, and the food shortages at home are all woven seamlessly into the story.
Any reader who appreciated Noel Streatfield’s books will enjoy the gloriously beautiful prose and timeless, classic style of The Skylarks’ War.
In a book that will appeal to adults as well as children, Hillary McKay has created an unforgettable story of lives shaped and sustained (when the world is at its darkest) by friendship, family, memories and love.
Get your wordy fix: Visit Waterstones at 72 Midsummer Blvd, Milton Keynes MK9 3GA
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