A realistic view of life during the blitz....
Jean Fullerton is the bestselling author of many family saga novels and the ‘East End Ration’ books of which this “A Ration Book Childhood” is the third in the series.
As soon as you start to read this book you get an immediate feel for the setting and how life was like for families during WW2 and the blitz.
This was my first book by the author so I can’t compare it to the others but it was well written and atmospheric and covered every single thing about life back in the 1940’s and is really quite an eyeopener. You really don’t realise how much you take for granted these days until you read something like this. Daily life of just wondering whether there would be enough meat left to buy by the time you got to the front of the queue, whether you would be able to get new uniform for your children to go to school in or if you would be able to scrape enough luxuries together to be able to cook a Christmas Day dinner. All along with the worry of sons, brothers, dads and husbands who were fighting for their country abroad. The daily bombings and having to trek to shelters with your kids and enough supplies to see you through all night if necessary, must have been torturous, not knowing if when you left the shelter your house would still be standing. Without reminders of life back then, we truly can’t appreciate how easy we have things today and how readily food and utilities are available to us now.
However, without belittling what families went through during the blitz, I did find the book a little dull. Without Queenie’s regular outbursts of Irish banter and setting the cat among the pigeons when she disagreed with anything, the story would be all rather one dimensional and I found generally the whole plot rather ‘safe’ even though there was emotion and family betrayals etc in the storyline.
Saying that, I did enjoy reading it for the historical aspect and I can see there has been a huge amount of research done to convey such authenticity in the story. The older generation who lived through the blitz will enjoy this series immensely but I also feel the younger generation should read this, to understand just how hard life was for families during the World Wars.
3.5 stars
As soon as you start to read this book you get an immediate feel for the setting and how life was like for families during WW2 and the blitz.
This was my first book by the author so I can’t compare it to the others but it was well written and atmospheric and covered every single thing about life back in the 1940’s and is really quite an eyeopener. You really don’t realise how much you take for granted these days until you read something like this. Daily life of just wondering whether there would be enough meat left to buy by the time you got to the front of the queue, whether you would be able to get new uniform for your children to go to school in or if you would be able to scrape enough luxuries together to be able to cook a Christmas Day dinner. All along with the worry of sons, brothers, dads and husbands who were fighting for their country abroad. The daily bombings and having to trek to shelters with your kids and enough supplies to see you through all night if necessary, must have been torturous, not knowing if when you left the shelter your house would still be standing. Without reminders of life back then, we truly can’t appreciate how easy we have things today and how readily food and utilities are available to us now.
However, without belittling what families went through during the blitz, I did find the book a little dull. Without Queenie’s regular outbursts of Irish banter and setting the cat among the pigeons when she disagreed with anything, the story would be all rather one dimensional and I found generally the whole plot rather ‘safe’ even though there was emotion and family betrayals etc in the storyline.
Saying that, I did enjoy reading it for the historical aspect and I can see there has been a huge amount of research done to convey such authenticity in the story. The older generation who lived through the blitz will enjoy this series immensely but I also feel the younger generation should read this, to understand just how hard life was for families during the World Wars.
3.5 stars