Deborah Hopkinson

When the World War II Blitz begins, two kids search des­per­ate­ly for their fam­i­lies as Nazi bombs rain down on London.

Char­lie “Sneak” Sawyer nev­er want­ed to leave Lon­don, despite his uneasy rela­tion­ship with his grand­fa­ther. But when the orders come for chil­dren to evac­u­ate as the world teeters on the brink of war, Grandad insists Char­lie leaves with the rest.

Months pass; the expect­ed bomb­ing of Lon­don does­n’t hap­pen, and kids begin drift­ing back from the coun­try­side. After a year spent toil­ing for a grumpy farmer, Char­lie’s had enough. He decides to sneak home to Lon­don, what­ev­er it takes.

Short­ly before he turns thir­teen, Char­lie does just that, only to be way­laid by Lucie Marie Mead­ows, a pre­co­cious girl with gold­en eyes.

A girl who might be able to see ghosts. A girl who’s keep­ing secrets.

Char­lie and Lucie arrive in Lon­don the after­noon of Sep­tem­ber 7, 1940 — the very after­noon when Nazi planes cross the sky and drop their first dead­ly loads. The Blitz has begun.

Sud­den­ly, Lon­don is a fiery, smok­ing maze of rub­ble, dan­ger, and chaos. The explo­sions are so ter­ri­fy­ing even the ghost of a WWI sol­dier roams the the­ater he haunts, unable to rest.

Some­how, with a res­cued dog called Smoke, Char­lie and Lucie must search for answers — and the peo­ple they love.

This is a remark­able tale that is at once a rol­lick­ing, hair-rais­ing adven­ture and a mov­ing sto­ry about fam­i­ly, courage, and the hero­ism of every­day peo­ple dur­ing the dev­as­tat­ing Blitz.