Uprooted - A Canadian War Story

Lynne Reid Banks is well-known and loved for her many childrens books, including The Indian in the Cupboard but this new book is based very much on her own experiences during the Second World War.
Uprooted tells the story of Lindy, who is ten at the start of the book, her mother and her cousin Cameron. To keep them safe from the bombing, they are sent over the sea to Canada to be war guests of a distant relative and the book follows them as they settle in to their new life.
Lindy, while worried for her father at home in England, finds new challenges, adventure and friends in Canada. Cameron, meanwhile, is wracked with homesickness and can find very little to be happy about. The tension between missing their old lives and family and embracing new experiences is very well expressed in the differing attitudes of Lindy and Cameron, who fall out on more than one occasion over this.
The book also deals with the difficulties that Lindys mother experiences as she tries to protect her charges and give them a good life in Canada. Her loneliness , fear and isolation are well drawn and Lindy particularly is able to see that life can be difficult for adults as well. The tensions in the first house they stay at build up slowly and then explode in a very dramatic way, leaving Lindy, her mother and Cameron in a very precarious position.
This book, while taking the common theme of war time evacuees, adds a new dimension with the vast distance involved and drives home the words that Lindys father says to her before she leaves; After that, youll have to depend on other people. Strangers.
335 pages / Ages 9 - 11 / Reviewed by June Hughes, school librarian

Suggested Reading Age 9+