As a teacher, I’m always interested in an author’s point of view about inspiring a love of reading and writing in our children. I know also that you have worked as a storyteller and secondary school teacher, so know you will be able to give some great advice!

Now, as the war breaks out, childhood stories give way to terrifying real life battles as German war machines lurk in the skies above and the sea below. Fear is in the air and it is not long before the people of the nearby village turn on Pet’s mother, who is German. What’s more, Pet’s older sister is acting suspiciously and Pet discovers a set of mysterious documents and photographs hidden away in the lighthouse. Twelve-year-old Petra lives in a lighthouse on the coast of England, so close to Europe that she can see right across to France on a clear day. When the war begins, some of the villagers—her neighbors for her entire life—behave abominably to Petra’s family. Her German-born mother is accused of treason and sent to an internment camp, and though Petra is confident of Mutti’s innocence, someone has been sending state secrets to the Nazis. Could it be that Petra’s nearest and dearest aren’t what they seem? No one in her family is acting normally. The stakes seem to rise slowly, coming to a breaking point as Petra’s personal tragedies intertwine with the grim reality of the Dunkirk evacuation. The (historically accurate) increasing maltreatment of the town’s German-British and Italian-British families increases Petra’s sense of dislocation in her previously cozy village setting (characters are all white). Strange’s deft hand with the had-I-but-known flavor of foreshadowing maintains a beautifully eerie, slightly gothic tone (occasionally at the expense of a believable 12-year-old voice). The character I found most interesting was Petra. She needs to cope with problems one after the other and still manages to be strong in a time of war like the one she lives in. She is one of the strongest characters with an imagination to rival the best writers. Strange has set this story in a very exciting era. It is played out against the run-up to the Dunkirk rescue mission when hundreds of vessels sailed to northern France to rescue British soldiers trapped on the beaches. A weird thing happens to me when I am frightened. I freeze. Like a startled rabbit. My whole body stiffens and I can't move at all. People use the word petrified to describe feeling afraid, but it really means much more than that - it means being so terrified that you cannot move a muscle; it means being turned to stone."Amongst all the hatred, we see the great lengths people go to to protect their loved ones. All of Pet’s family are hiding things to try and protect each other - it doesn’t matter what happens, family always comes first. The polarising characters of Pet and Mags play out beautifully together. Pet is frightened, lonely and feels small and unimportant contrasted with Mags who is bold, brave and fearless. It is Pet though that grows most as a character - her wartime experiences see her overcome her fears, face dangers head on and face the startling truth about her family. Ik las niet eerder een boek van Lucy Strange, maar dit boek smaakte zeker naar meer. Een boek over de dochter van een vuurtorenwachter, alleen de beschrijving is al magisch. The cliffs and beaches where Petra has lived with her father, mother and elder sister, Mags, could any day become a battleground. The English Channel is presently keeping the fighting in Europe, but the German forces need only to get across that narrow strip of water separating them from Europe and the war would take a disastrous turn. How would you envisage teachers using your book in their classrooms? Do any activities or ideas spring to mind?

Here in the dark, on this very spot where we are sitting now, the girls sang a special song to the sea. They sang the sweetest, saddest song that has ever been heard. It was a song of love and loyalty and sacrifice, promising the greatest of gifts if only the Aurora were returned safely to the harbour. They sat and sang, and as they sang, they saw the fog begin to disperse. They kept singing and singing. ‘Soon it was dawn and the girls stood up together, holding hands as the darkness dissolved and the new sun started to rise over the sea. Their white dresses billowed like sails in the first breeze that had blessed the shores in four long days and nights. A ghostly little boat seemed to bob up from the grey waves, and the girls knew it was the Aurora. They kept singing – but singing with joy now as they watched the fishing boat sail towards the harbour below. An engaging novel-in-poems that imagines one earnest, impassioned teenage girl’s experience of the Japanese-American internment. Het tweede boek van Lucy Strange Ons kasteel aan zee, begint met een proloog. Een terugblik naar een tijd ver voor de oorlog, waarin onze jonge vertelster leert over de mythe van de Dochters van Steen. Een donkere mythe over opoffering, een zeedraak maar ook over liefde en magie. Schools are spoilt for choice when it comes to stories set in World War 2, but this new book by Lucy Strange absolutely deserves its place as a worthy addition to the list. As a primary school teacher I have read many a children’s book set during the second world war. The standard has been set high by the likes of Once, Goodnight Mister Tom, Letters from the Lighthouse, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and The Umbrella Mouse. All of these are must reads and I can now add Our Castle by the Sea to that list. It is a gripping wartime adventure that perfectly captures a young girl’s life on the home-front.Who: After stints as an actor, singer and storyteller, Lucy Strange became a secondary school teacher and writer of middle-grade historical fiction. Her first book, The Secret of Nightingale Wood, received high praise and her second, Our Castle by the Sea, is the subject of this review. I recommend this to readers of 11-14 who are not super sensitive and willing to learn a little history. They will be able to make parallels between 1941 and now and hopefully learn from the past and change the future. Determined to discover the restore her family’s good name, Petra has to overcome her timidity and discover the truth.

Verdict: An evocative, richly rendered historical fiction full of depth of characters and plot (9/10) I loved reading all sorts of things when I was small – Enid Blyton adventures, Roald Dahl, and children’s classics such as Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows and The Jungle Book. As I got older I developed a taste for detective stories, and I still love Agatha Christie’s brilliant mysteries to this day. I have a theory that all really good plots – regardless of genre – contain elements of the classic murder mystery: hidden clues, red herrings, twists and revelations.An English girl whose mother is German is ensnared by her neighbors’ bigotry and by apparent treason at the onset of World War II. The third floor features three large bedrooms, one of which is the main master bedroom, and a large balcony with a wet bar and rooftop terrace access. The master bedroom has a king bed, flat-screen TV, and private access to the third floor balcony. The adjoining master bathroom has a large walk-in shower, jetted tub, and custom double vanities. This floor also features a king guest bedroom with a private bathroom with a walk-in shower and access to the balcony. Additionally, there's a third guest bedroom with a queen bed and private bathroom with a walk-in shower.

Mags may be the loud and brave one and Pet the small and quiet one, but they are each going to have to change. Mutti has been accused of drawing maps and diagrams of the English coast for the German army. She is then declared an "enemy alien" and sent away to an internment camp. Pet doesn't know who to trust anymore, even in her own family. All she knows is that she needs to solve all these mysteries that Mags, the " "half -tamed tornado", wouldn't have the patience to help her with, even if Petra could trust her. Someone set fire to the Local Defense Volunteers hut, someone is sending vital intelligence about their coastline to the German army, and someone is trying to tamper with the Castle. It's up to Pet to find who is doing these acts of treachery that her Mutti is being blamed for. The book has inspired me a little bit. But now that I have finished it I want to learn a bit more about this topic and WW2. The winners of the Diverse Book Awards 2023 have been announced, with one winner from each of the four categories announced: Picture book, Children... The Wyrm squirmed beneath the surface of the water. It had returned the Aurora, but now it felt angry and cheated and hungry. So it took the great sacrifice the girls had promised: it took their souls. Tentacles of mist reached up from the sea, creeping over the edge of the cliff and into their hearts. As the sun rose over the glittering water, the four daughters turned to stone.’ I shivered horribly. I felt all icy and strange. The many mysteries were riveting. Pet is a relatable young girl, and her journey from the shy, quiet one who felt small and insignificant, to the brave, determined heroine is inspiring. Lucy Strange creates an interesting story that combines myth with actual World War II history. I loved the setting of the Castle, since just a few weeks before reading this I was able to visit and go up into an old lighthouse for the first time. Lucy captured the atmosphere beautifully and it was easy to imagine the incredible views Petra got to draw every day.

Why the lighthouse is fiction's perfect setting

I learned so much about the past from this book. To begin, I learned that to hide from German bombers everyone had to camouflage their houses. Then I learned how no one trusted anyone and that if you had a German heritage, you were almost doomed. I learned so much from this book and felt the story many times. Then I would close the book and dream of the lighthouse and everyone in it. I liked all the old and fancy names that they used for the planes and just some of the words they used like, sabotage or spitfire. I did know some things about World War II before, but I didn’t know much about spies. I didn’t really know lots and lots about the war to understand the story perfectly.