In Back Home, Michelle Magorian, author of Goodnight Mister Tom, tells the story of Rusty, returning to England after being evacuated to America for five years in the Second World War.
After five happy years in America, Rusty must return to England: the place she used to call home.
‘Oh tosh,’ said Beatie, waving her arms about. ‘It’s good to have lots of homes. Means you can make one anywhere.’ ‘That’s what Grandma Fitz says. She says if you put your heart and hands and back into a place, then it’ll be home.’
But it doesn’t feel like home. Rusty’s mother is like a stranger, her little brother doesn’t know her and why does the food taste so bad? Rusty just can’t get used to the rigid rules and rationing and her strict new boarding school.
Lonely and homesick, Rusty makes friends with Lance, another returned evacuee, and her indomitable spirit leads her into a dramatic and devastating rebellion. . .
Guardian Children’s Fiction award-winning Michelle Magorian is the author of the iconic war-time children’s book, Goodnight Mister Tom.
Michelle Magorian was born in Portsmouth and on leaving school studied at the Rose Bruford College of speech and Drama and Marcel Marceau’s International School of Mime in Paris. Over the years she became interested in children’s books and decided to write one herself. The result was Goodnight Mister Tom, which won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, an International Reading Association Award and was also made into a superb film starring the late John Thaw. In 2012 Michelle was made a Fellow of Rose Bruford College.
I was first given a copy of this when I was around 14 years old by my Granny. It was one of hers she had for a while or had been passed on and is now quite battered, 24 years on but is one of the few paperbacks I still own. I always associate the book with certain music and after hearing that recently I felt compelled to re-read it and as always it didn’t disappoint!
Firstly, this is a book aimed at children (9-12), but I loved it and related well to it back at fourteen and have re-read it many times since and always love it so it’s definitely not just for children.
Set just after the second world war, Rusty was sent to America as an evacuee aged seven and has lived there with her ‘American family’ for the past 5 years, we begin the story with her return voyage and, aged twelve, her reunion with her family back home.
This covers the story of how the evacuated children felt when they returned home, they felt like they had one foot in each country, two entirely different worlds, the new one is much duller with constant reminders that everyone who hadn’t been sent away had ‘just been through war you know’. You can easily sympathise with how a 12-year-old would feel being confused and thrown back into a strange world with virtual strangers.
Poor Rusty is seriously misunderstood, the things that were respectful in America are disrespectful back home and she struggles to fit in. Everything changes so quickly, first reunited with her mother who she doesn’t recognise, meeting her baby brother, now four, who she has never met before and then reuniting with her grandmother and her father. Sent away to boarding school to educate her properly and lose her accent, Rusty is desperately unhappy.
This is so well written, you feel Rusty’s pain throughout the book and want to jump in and rescue her, to give her a huge hug and make her feel loved again. The character development is brilliant, right from the first page you can easily link in with them and feel the pain and confusion on both sides, the things left unsaid that should be said and the pain it caused the other party. Peggy, Rusty’s mother, must have missed her terribly and feels rejected when she returns, she finds it hard to communicate with this young and fiercely independent child. She tries her best to smooth the path for her but Rusty doesn’t always see it.
This is a potentially life-changing and heart-warming book for any adult or child struggling to find their way, feeling lonely or left out or going through big life changes.
| Title | Back Home |
| Author | Michelle Magorian |
| Series | N/A |
| Format | Paperback |
| Page Count | 480 Pages |
| Genre | Children’s Historical Fiction |
| Publisher | Puffin |
| Release Date | 1985 |
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