The Lights Go on Again - Hardcover

Pearson, Kit

4.09

1,729 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670849197 ISBN 13: 9780670849192

Publisher: Viking Juvenile, 1994

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With the end of World War II, Gavin and Norah, who had been sent to Canada for safety, must return to England after a five-year absence, and Gavin is faced with the difficult choice of leaving his beloved Canadian family and his best friends.

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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 School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8-This is the third installment in the lives of two British children who were evacuated to Canada during World War II. In The Sky Is Falling (1990) and Looking at the Moon (1992, both Viking), readers were introduced to Gavin and Norah, and followed them through their first few years in Toronto. In The Lights Go on Again, the war ends, and the young people make plans to return to their homeland. The conflict arises out of Gavin's reluctance to leave, especially after his parents' sudden death during a bombing. He truly feels like a Canadian boy, and he has almost no memory of his home. Pearson successfully captures the mood of the war era without sacrificing the youthful point of view of the protagonist. Historical details, like collecting stamps for war bonds and paper drives, are unobtrusive. The characters, even distant relatives and school chums, are multidimensional and seem to come to life on the page. Still, it seems that the novel never gets off the ground. No genuine dramatic tension is created until near the end, when Gavin announces his desire to stay in Canada and be adopted by the elderly woman he calls Aunt Florence rather than leave with his sister. That issue is resolved very quickly. He goes back to war-torn Great Britian, and to what is left of his family and their bombed-out home. The potential to engage young readers with wonderful historical fiction is in these pages, but it has slipped through Pearson's fingers.
Lucinda Lockwood, Thomas Haney Secondary School, Maple Ridge, BC
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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