It is okay for children to be heroes in a story, even a story set during World War II, but (spoiler alert) I have never felt so relieved as I did in this book when an adult steps in to help even though I had to wait until Chapter 50!
Ronnie Smith lives in London and the war has begun. It has always just been Ronnie, his brother Micky and their mum. His dad suffered during the First World War and had become violent and abusive prior to mum telling him to leave. Micky misses his dad but Ronnie has only bad memories. Then another man steps into their home and their lives - Johnny Simmons. Right from the start Ronnie can see this guy is dangerous and that his behaviour towards his mum and brother are a sham, but mum seems to like Johnny and Micky believes he only has good intentions for their family.
Johnny heads away to work at all sorts of strange times. London is being bombarded every evening and food is becoming scarce and yet Johnny is able to gift Micky a new bike and give the boys' mum extra food.
We discover, along with Ronnie, that Johnny is using the cover of air raids to rob people's homes but worse Johnny follows the Blackshirts. He is a Nazi sympathiser and it seems he has recruited Micky to do his 'work'. Ronnie needs to protect his brother, convince his mother Johnny is fake and dangerous and hopefully also make sure Johnny is caught by the police. This all feels impossible. Luckily he has a best friend named Lugs to help him along with a gang of neighborhood kids who set themselves a competition to collect shrapnel - hence the title - the shrapnel boys.
"Flaming heck Micky! What is it going to take for you to realize the Johnny is bad news? No matter what I tell you and Mum about him, neither of you will believe me. He's a criminal. I know in my heart of hearts he's a criminal and I know whatever he's got you doing for him is wrong. Why can't you see him for what he is? He's a criminal and a flamin' fascist to boot! Why won't you believe me?"
Shrapnel Boys has been on my to read list since last year. It is a long book (368 pages) with fairly small print so it will suit readers aged 10+ who have good reading stamina but I am sure once they begin this book they will be like me and want to keep reading and reading ever hopeful Jenny Pearson will make sure good conquers evil. This is one of those books that I just read compulsively over a couple of days all the while trying to resist the urge to turn to the final pages to check the ending.
You can read the first chapter here and from this same link you will find a video where Jenny Pearson talks about her book.
Jenny Pearson is an award-winning author, teacher and mother of two young boys. Her books have been translated into 21 languages, and she has been shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Week Junior Book Award and was the winner of the Laugh Out Loud Book Award. As a primary school teacher, Jenny regularly covers the Second World War in her classroom and was inspired to write Shrapnel Boys by the extraordinary resilience of Londoners living through the war.
If you are curious about Shrapnel Boys read this very detailed review from Book Craic.
Shrapnel Boys has been longlisted for the Carnegies:
The way these kids form a gang this book made me think of Emil and the Detectives.
Companion Books:
