CHILDREN’S book of the week

WAVE ME GOODBYE Jacqueline Wilson, Doubleday Childrens, £12.99 (ebook £8.99)

OVER three days in September 1939, 1.5 million children were evacuated from cities to the countryside, as Britain declared war on Germany.

Much-venerated children’s author Jacqueline Wilson has turned to this period in the nation’s history for her remarkable 106th book.

It opens as 10-year-old Londoner Shirley is woken early by her mum and asked if she’d like to “go on a little holiday”. It soon becomes clear she’s going by herself, as her mum packs up a change of clothes, her wash things and lets her choose one book from her beloved collection.

At Victoria station, she’s rushed onto a train with a group of schoolgirls from a convent school and makes firm friends with the bespectacled Jessica. But once they arrive at Meadow Ridge, they’re separated.

Eventually she’s billeted with the two remaining boys at the Red House, run by stern-but-fair Chubby, the maid for her reclusive mistress Mrs Waverley.

As she gradually comes to tolerate little Archie and lanky Kevin, the three discover there are secrets aplenty at the Red House, where their experiences will shape them forever.

Wilson has an incredible ability to inhabit her child characters so precisely and Wave Me Goodbye will be like Nina Bawden’s Carrie’s War for a new generation of children learning about our country’s past.