Shrapnel

January 11, 2010
Swindells returns to the setting of Blitzed (minus the time travel) with this gripping WWII novel, as 13-year-old Gordon and his fellow schoolboys collect the shrapnel that results from antiaircraft fire during the London Blitz. The falling metal is dangerous to anyone not in a shelter and so is the emotional fallout from Gordon's discovery of a gun in the room of his older brother, Raymond. Raymond soon has Gordon convinced that they're both working for an underground organization designed to fight off an eventual Nazi occupation, and Gordon doesn't realize what he's really been drawn into until it's too late. Subplots involving school bullies, Gordon's upper-class best friend, and model airplanes move the story forward briskly, but it's Gordon's excitement and eventual guilt that really drive the story. Swindells deftly explains the atmosphere of war-torn Londonâwith the air raids, rations, and state of fearâwithout bogging down the pace of the book. A slightly too-pat (though still moving) ending and an unnecessary epilogue detract a bit, but the story is still well worth reading. Ages 12âup.

March 1, 2010
Gr 5-9-It's 1941, there's a war on in England, and Gordon, 13, wishes he could fly Spitfires. His dad's an engineer at Beresford's factorya "reserved occupation" that can't be called up. His brother, Raymond, had also worked there, but he's just quit and moved out. In short chapters of confiding first-person narrative, readers learn that life is made up of shelter drills, window blackouts, rations, bully taunts about shirkers, and air raids, blasts, and shrapnel wreaking constant havoc on the town. When Gordon discovers his brother's hidden revolver, Raymond says he's part of a secret army, and that Gordon can do his part by ferrying information for him in a model airplane. Careful readers know from italicized vignettes that, though Gordon unwittingly plays along, Raymond is really a dealer in black-market goods. When everything unravels, his transgressions are more gruesome than anyone could have predicted. Swindells paints the home front like a play, in page-turning but atmospheric scenes full of details of everyday life and secondary characters that rise, well-rounded, from spare, believable dialogue. U.S. readers who can stick with the U.K. slang will find a unique and rewarding treatment of the war's collateral damage on the British populace."Riva Pollard, Prospect Sierra Middle School, El Cerrito, CA"

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