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by Michelle Magorian

First published 1984

Amazon

4.4(495)

After spending five years in the United States for safety during the Second World War, twelve-year-old Virginia Dickinson returns to England expecting to come home. Instead, Rusty finds rationing, emotional restraint and a family who regard her American speech and habits as evidence that she has become a stranger. Her parents’ decision to send her to boarding school deepens the sense that neither country fully belongs to her.

The novel examines the less familiar aftermath of overseas evacuation: disrupted attachments, cultural dislocation and the difficulty of rebuilding family relationships after years apart. Through Rusty’s resistance to school discipline and domestic expectations, Magorian portrays post-war Britain as a society demanding conformity while children and adults alike struggle to understand how war has changed them.