Saplings

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The moving story of the destruction of a happy family - Rated
It is true that this is not a happy book in many ways, the slow destruction of a happy family (although at the beginning you sense that happiness to be fragile) is not a cheerful topic. This however is a beautifully written novel, very readable, with fabulously drawn characters, realistic, and often flawed. Noel Streatfeild wrote about children so well, their voices are so authentic and the reader is able to identify with them, and their little agonies - and really feels the larger tragedies that enter their lives, as we can all remember what it was to be a child, not fully understanding the world around us. The reality of WW2 - and its effects upon family life is what is at the heart of this novel, and these effects are most keenly felt by the children of the family, but the adult characters are just as well portrayed and explored. I loved every page of this book.

Children at war - Rated
The Wiltshires are an ordinary middle class family just before the beginning of WWII. Mum, Dad and four children are portrayed in the opening chapter as almost too cloyingly contented on their annual seaside holiday. This first chapter does not prepare the reader for the course the book will take. As the war begins and the family has to adapt, the children's secure world begins to fragment. Streatfeild's insights into the psychology of children are excellent. She makes each of these children, Laurel, Tony, Kim and Tuesday an individual who reacts to the gradual breakup of their family in their own totally realistic way. The adults in the story, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers and servants, fail the children in fundamental ways, with few exceptions. This is a moving story of the disintegration of a family in wartime. The experience of evacuees, and the consequences of children being seperated from their parents and siblings is beautifully done. Above all, the novel is well-written, full of interest and packed with characters the reader grows to care about. I loved Ballet shoes as a child, and Saplings has the same quality of observing and understanding children.

A wonderful book. - Rated
It's only in the past year that I've discovered Noel Streatfeild's adult books and this book and Grass in Picadilly are the best I've read yet. The characters are so real and captured me in the way that few ever do. This is a definite must read.