Stay Where You Are, and then Leave by John Boyne

John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, brings us another war tale - this time from World War I.  I read this in anticipation of the historical fiction/primary source project that we are doing in 6th grade.  I know very little about WWI, so I thought this would be a good one for me to read.

The book introduces us to Alfie when he is 5 years old (1914), and his dad drives the Milk Float - delivering milk to the local community. When his dad joins the British Army to fight in the war, he tells Alfie that it will be for a short time...five years later, his dad is still away, and Alfie and his mom are struggling to survive. His mom keeps telling him that his dad is on a "secret mission," but Alfie fears the worst...until he discovers quite by accident that his father is in a local hospital, being treated for shell shock.  Upon learning this, Alfie cooks up a plan to break his dad out of the hospital - no matter what it takes.  

Though this is not a quick moving story, I enjoyed the quiet persistence that Alfie shows in 1) helping his mom through tough times; 2) finding out what happened to his dad; and 3) getting his dad out of the restrictive hospital.

When looking for primary sources to connect with this particular book, I found a photograph of a Milk Float (I wasn't sure what that would look like!) and an old, water-stained photograph of the hospital where his father had been treated in the story (the hospital still exists today)

This is a typical milk float or delivery cart, owned by Mr. Harrison (in the float) and his son Luther (by the horse) before and just after the First World War.

http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?resourceIdentifier=200621_160574

A water-damaged photo of Ipswich and East Suffolk Hospital 1918 http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-70ghHzqPoas/T6Ahe0YHLlI/AAAAAAAACvA/X_DR4HzucB8/s1600/IpswichEastSuffolkHospital2.jpg