Looking at the Moon (War Guests Trilogy) - Softcover

Kit Pearson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340687673 ISBN 13: 9780340687673

Publisher: Hodder Children's Books, 1997

Synopsis

It's 1943 and World War II is raging. Thirteen-year-old Norah has been an English "war guest" in Canada for three years. Then Andrew arrives, mature and handsome, and Norah falls in love.

About this title

About the Author

Kit Pearson worked as a librarian for many years before publishing her first novel, The Daring Game (1986). She went on to write the linked novels The Sky Is Falling (1989), Looking at the Moon (1991), and The Lights Go On Again (1993), published in 1999 as The Guests of War trilogy, and Awake and Dreaming (1996), which won the Governor General’s Award. Pearson lives in Victoria, close to Ross Bay Cemetery, one of the settings in Awake and Dreaming .

From Kirkus Reviews

The second in a trilogy (The Sky Is Falling, 1990)--about two English children sent to live in Canada during WW II--takes Norah (now 13) and little brother Gavin for a summer at the large lakeside establishment of the Drummond family, whose several generations come there also to join Norah's hostess, wealthy old Mrs. Ogilvie. The family's lifestyle (plus Pearson's depiction of it) is leisurely--boating, games, etc. Of the nine cousins in the youngest generation, the one of greatest interest to Norah is Andrew, 19, a would-be actor whose family is pushing him into engineering school or the army (as an officer, of course; class is taken for granted). Norah develops a fervent crush on Andrew, a kind boy who (after he notices) preserves his friendly demeanor with admirable tact; he even confides his horror of killing to Norah alone, so that his later decision to join up comes as a shock to her (cf. Hahn's Stepping on the Cracks, 1991, which probes much deeper into this issue). Pearson writes with restraint--the adults never do find out about the party the kids throw when they spend a night away; unmarried Aunt Mary decides not to wed the nice man she's been meeting secretly all summer--yet the undramatic outcomes are realistic; meanwhile, Norah continues to grow and adapt, and others are lightly but credibly sketched. A period piece, at its best in evoking those strangely peaceful days. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340687673
• ISBN 13: 9780340687673
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224