Shrapnel
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
It's the height of World War Two. Britain is being ravaged by bombs and most young men are off fighting. Gordon wishes he was too. Maybe then he wouldn't get bullied for having a cowardly family . . . Gordon's dad didn't serve in World War One, and now his older brother Raymond isn't serving in World War Two - he's gone missing. When Gordon finds a revolver hidden in his house, he tracks Raymond down, but ends up involved in more than he'd bargined for. Raymond enlists Gordon's help to deliver and collect some 'packages'. But is the work actually for the government? And will it have terrible consequences?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Swindells returns to the setting of Blitzed (minus the time travel) with this gripping WWII novel, as 13-year-old Gordon and his fellow schoolboys collect the shrapnel that results from antiaircraft fire during the London Blitz. The falling metal is dangerous to anyone not in a shelter and so is the emotional fallout from Gordon's discovery of a gun in the room of his older brother, Raymond. Raymond soon has Gordon convinced that they're both working for an underground organization designed to fight off an eventual Nazi occupation, and Gordon doesn't realize what he's really been drawn into until it's too late. Subplots involving school bullies, Gordon's upper-class best friend, and model airplanes move the story forward briskly, but it's Gordon's excitement and eventual guilt that really drive the story. Swindells deftly explains the atmosphere of war-torn London with the air raids, rations, and state of fear without bogging down the pace of the book. A slightly too-pat (though still moving) ending and an unnecessary epilogue detract a bit, but the story is still well worth reading. Ages 12 up.
