Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) by Michelle Magorian

💙 When England was on the brink of Second World War, many children from London were evacuated to the countryside. Tom Oakley, a widower in his sixties, who lived in a farming little village called Little Weirwold, found himself the receiver end of a little spindly and terrified evacuee called William, or Willie. His mother wanted little eight year old Willie to be placed in a house of church person or lives near a church. Tom's was the latter.

💙 Tom soon found sore and bruises all over William's body. That, and the way William flinched, terrified, when Tom took a poker to rake the fire (thinking that Tom would brand him), showed Tom how William had been abused at home, by his over religious and mentally unstable mother. William thought himself full of sin, terrified of doing anything boys used to do, and that made him bullied at school, and was called a sissy. His condition moved Tom deeply; and he, a recluse and cantankerous man ever since his wife and son died, treated William with kindness and affection. The first night of William's sleeping at his own attic bedroom, was undoubtedly the turning point of his brighter future. His "Goodnight, Mister Tom" that night before sleep, was a token of gratefulness and affection - two things William had never felt before.

💙 Soon the two, together with Sammy, Tom's dog, were inseparable. He soon went to school and befriended some children: George, the twins Carrie and Ginnie. But his best friend was another evacuee, a cheerful Jewish boy called Zach. William learned to read and write, but they found out soon that he had a special talent of painting and acting. As William gradually emerged from the timid sickly boy he had been when he first arrived, so was Tom, emerged from his "cocoon". But things were not always bright and happy for William; he would experience dark moments, coloured with violence and death. I have prayed during the second part of the book that Tom would adopt William; that he didn't have to return to his abusive mother.

💙 On the whole, it was a delightful novel, though in some part it became too dark for children, I believe. But other than that, the daily lives of the children, and Tom's affection to William, are all warm and satisfying. It was satisfying indeed when William became happy after all the abuses he had been treated. Above all, this book reminds us that we might never be immune to sorrow or loss, but as long as there's love in us, time would heal our wounds, and make us even stronger.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐