Good Night, Mr. Tom

“I must be good; I must be good.” Willie Beech’s mother drummed the mantra into him when he left home as an evacuee. My heart went out to the boy from the first page, where it is clear he had been maltreated, neglected, and indoctrinated with a cruel sense of godliness in the guise of caring.

His curmudgeonly evacuation host, Tom Oakley, is the kind of person whose stern manner I would have feared as a child but who hides a kind heart and a strong sense of fair play. This story is one of my all-time favorites.

This is an exceptionally good middle grade book! It tells what really happened to British children who were evacuated from the cities to the countryside during WWII. It caused me to question my English grandparents about their experiences during WWII. Imagine how people would react today if the government ordered them to put their children on a train to go live with strangers in some other part of the country.

Will, the neglected and maltreated son of a fanatically religious, mentally disturbed mother, has never experienced love or kindness. At the outbreak of World War II, he and other children are evacuated from London to the countryside. In the home of his foster father, Mr. Oakley, whom he calls Mister Tom, Will slowly understands that life can be very different from what he has been used to – and Mr. Oakley, a widowed recluse, is brought out of his self-imposed isolation. Meanwhile, the war, at first a distant rumble in the background, comes closer and closer to the village and… show more.