Remembrance

This book about World War I, by award-winning author Theresa Breslin, works on several levels: as a love story, a treatment of equality between the sexes and the conflict between jingoism and pacifism, and a chronological account of the war itself. After rather a slow start, the pace of the novel quickens when the four main characters are drawn into the struggle, the two young women as a munitions worker and a nurse respectively, the two young men as recruits to Kitchener's army, one willing, the other very reluctant. Using the device of letters written to and from the front line, the author gives a detailed and realistic picture of trench warfare in France and Belgium and the conditions in factories and hospitals both in Britain and in France. No detail is deemed too unpleasant - this is strong stuff, although well-known. Less familiar is the theme of women's growing independence, an idea which is dealt with very fully and sympathetically. Maggie Dundas has always worked hard in her father's shop, but when her brother leaves for France she begins to resent the assumption that her place will be at home, behind the counter or in the kitchen. A series of bold decisions changes her life, opens her mind and shows her what she is capable of. Exchanging letters with 'Master' Francis, the young man from the big house in the village, she discusses the horrors they both have to cope with and the futility and waste of war. As the story ends with celebrations of peace, at least one of the couples appears to have a happy future ahead of them, but the overall tone of the book is, quite rightly, sombre. (Kirkus UK)