Just Henry

by Michelle Magorian Book 3 in the Hollis Family Books series.

First published 2008

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4.2(1,071)

Five years after the war, Henry Dodge lives beneath the memory of a father celebrated as a hero. He escapes into the cinema and keeps apart from classmates whom his grandmother considers disreputable, until a school project and an undeveloped roll of film draw him into friendships with Pip and Jeffries and expose contradictions in the story his family has told him.

Magorian uses Henry’s investigation to explore bomb-damaged neighbourhoods, rationing, illegitimacy, desertion and the moral certainty with which communities judged one another after the war. As Henry learns how photographs and films can both reveal and conceal the truth, he must decide whether family loyalty means preserving a heroic legend or accepting the more difficult reality.