Silent in an Evil Time

November 1, 2007
Gr 7 Up-This exceptional biography reads like an adventure novel. Born in 1865, in Swardeston, England, Cavell worked as a governess before she decided to become a nurse. After her training, she accepted an offer from a Belgian surgeon to start a nursing-training clinic in Brussels in order to raise the standard of care there. When World War I broke out, the city was occupied by the Germans, but Cavell sheltered numerous British and French soldiers in the clinic. When the Germans discovered her activities, they put her on trial and executed her. The woman's life is laid out logically and succinctly in this revealing work. The author does not glorify her; he shows her as a real person and not just as a mythologized heroine. The historical facts are well explained and Cavell is placed clearly in context. Her legacy is portrayed objectively and her impact is well documented. The few black-and-white photographs, while informative, are very dark and contribute to an overall gray and lackluster book design. This is the only flaw in an otherwise fine effort."Kristen Oravec, Stephen S. Wise Elementary School, Los Angeles"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2007
This large-format paperback tells the story of Edith Cavell, who began training as a nurse in London in 1895 and worked at various hospitals in England before setting up a clinic in Brussels in 1907. After the outbreak of World War I, while Belgium was under German occupation, Cavell worked with the resistance, hiding Allied soldiers and helping them escape. Her execution by firing squad caused a groundswell of anti-German sentiment in Great Britain, Commonwealth nations, and the United States. Batten finds a good balance between telling Cavells story in an involving way and filling in general background information that readers may not know, such as the dynamics in early twentieth-century Europe that led to World War I or the changes in English nursing brought about by Florence Nightingale. Black-and-white photos, including modern pictures of sites and old photos of Cavell and her world, illustrate the text. A selected bibliography of sources is appended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)