Goodnight Mr Tom ✔

The genius of Magorian’s characterization is that Tom’s kindness is unconscious. He isn’t trying to be a father; he is simply doing the next right thing. When he discovers Willie has a knack for drawing, he buys him a sketchbook. When Willie wets the bed, Tom does not shout. He silently strips the sheets and shows Willie the outdoor toilet. This lack of punishment is so foreign to Willie that he breaks down in confused tears.

Set against the ominous backdrop of the Second World War, the story follows a young boy named Willie Beech, who is evacuated from a slum in Deptford, South London, to the rural village of Little Weirwold. There, he is billeted with Tom Oakley, a reclusive widower in his sixties. What begins as a forced cohabitation born of necessity blossoms into one of the most touching relationships in modern fiction. Goodnight Mr Tom

The rescue scene is pivotal. Tom finds Willie near death, The genius of Magorian’s characterization is that Tom’s

To finish Goodnight Mister Tom is to feel as though you have lived through a war yourself. The final pages, where Tom and Willie sit looking at the stars, knowing the war is not yet over but that they will face it together, are devastatingly quiet. When Willie wets the bed, Tom does not shout

If you’re looking for a book that will make you sob like a baby and then immediately want to hug everyone you know, Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom

The book refuses to promise a perfect future. The scars on Willie’s chest will remain. The ghost of Tom’s wife will linger. But the final image is one of stubborn survival. Tom, the old man, has learned to love again. Willie, the boy, has learned to live again.