Stay Where you Are & Then Leave

Four years ago, nine-year-old Alfie Summerfield's dad, Georgie, went off to fight in WWI. For a while, letters from Georgie came regularly. Then they stopped altogether. Now Alfie (accidentally) learns that Georgie is in a nearby hospital, suffering from shell-shock. The third-person limited narration keeps readers experiencing events solely from Alfie's intelligent but childlike point of view.

Nine-year-old Alfie Summerfield's milkman dad, Georgie, went away four years ago, one of the first men on respectable Damley Road to sign up to fight in WWI. Since then, Alfie's life has changed drastically: his mum now works all hours as a nurse; his best friend Kalena Janácek and her sweet shop-owner father are gone, interned as spies; school is optional, and most days he skips it in favor of shining shoes at King's Cross Station. For a while, letters from Georgie had come regularly -- first cheery and upbeat and later filled with horror and misery. Then they stop altogether. Alfie doesn't believe his mother's explanation that Georgie is on a "secret mission for the government," but it's not until he accidentally glimpses some papers belonging to one of his customers that he learns Georgie is in a nearby hospital, suffering from shell-shock. As in previous Boyne work (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, rev. 9/06), unlikely encounters and occurrences abound (Alfie not only meets the prime minister but manages to both locate and rescue his father). While the plot is a veritable alphabet soup of WWI British home-front tropes -- from the belief that it would "all be over by Christmas" to mob attacks on foreigners to the white feathers (for cowardice) handed out to unenlisted men -- it's made palatable by the third-person limited narration, which keeps readers experiencing events solely from Alfie's intelligent but childlike point of view. And the portraits drawn of the shell-shocked soldiers are heartbreaking. martha v. parravano