Goodnight Mister Tom: Michelle Magorian (A Puffin Book)

Product Information

William blames himself for the death of his sister, and for his mother’s treatment of him, but Tom helps him see that it is not his fault. The surprise is more of a shock: Willie now has a baby sister, who has been left in a wooden box, with tape over its mouth to stop her from crying. She produces the school Christmas pageant and plays and is also the person responsible for unlocking Willie's hidden talent as an actor. I still laughed (seriously, Zach and I need to be best friends) and I still got teary at certain parts and I still got a warm feeling in my tummy at that epilogue. Both learn to trust again after hardships they have both faced and develop into a lovely fatherly son team.

As I mentioned, I read this book when I was ten and now twelve years later this book was still beautiful. Tom explains a bad dream that Willie has repeatedly been having regarding this exact event, and argues that he needs to be with someone who loves him. He was standing quite still, feeling both paralysed and yet at the same time filled with a flood of energy.After leaving Willie and his baby sister locked in the cellar with no food or water, she commits suicide a month later. This book is one of my all-time favourites and I know I say that about every book, but I definitely mean it this time. The Persian lyric poet Hafiz once wrote, “Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth ‘you owe me.

Tom has become reclusive after losing his wife and child to scarlet fever many years before, while Willie is a quiet young boy who comes from an abusive home and is apprehensive of Tom. The second half of the book takes on serious issues of child abuse/neglect, the horrors and losses of war, and the grieving process. According to CCSU some runners up through 2002 were Commended (from 1955) or Highly Commended (from 1966). I definitely recommend this book to children from 9 upwards as there are some words that are tricky to understand.

Throughout the book, as his confidence builds, he feels comfortable developing other skills and talents such as acting (at which he is extremely skilled), swimming, and riding a bicycle. He manages to find Tom’s neighborhood and convinces a policeman to kick down the door of William’s seemingly empty house. While speaking with Zach, Willie learns about the concept of sex, something his mother raised him to believe was "something dirty" and unacceptable, and realises that his mother herself had been having a relationship with another man, which resulted in the birth of Trudy. William regains consciousness to find himself in the cupboard under the stairs, stripped down to his underwear, with his ankle twisted.

It soon becomes apparent to Tom that Willie hasn’t had a happy childhood, that in fact, he’s been subjected to cruelty and deprivation, and so Tom sets out to improve the boy’s life. Goodnight Mister Tom is a story of the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of love and kindness. William attends school and makes friends, including George, twins Carrie and Ginnie, and especially fellow evacuee Zach.The setting is perfectly constructed, the friendships that are developed are honest and true and there is always this rich sense of innocent fun running through the story, which is perfectly balanced with the more harrowing points of the tale. Zach receives the news that his father has been injured in the war, and Zach hurries home to be with him. After a disturbing, violent nightmare about being locked in a confined space, Tom decides to go to London to find Willie. He has been subjected to intense abuse and neglect from his extremely religious mother all of his life.

Willie takes over as prompter after finishing the scenery and after a week he knows most of the play by heart. Tom" Oakley is a sixty-year-old man who was widowed 40 years ago and became the town recluse/curmudgeon. It would have been far more interesting to see him fail at things, and have to struggle to become good at what he does.

While pursuing an acting career, Magorian became interested in children's books, writing her first novel for young readers ( Goodnight, Mr. It doesn't seem enough to say, "Oh, it's a really touching story," because it's so much more than that.