Searching for a solo chapter book

[Jomo]

I can’t find this one in the cave of books. I can’t remember the title or any names:
I’ts about a girl who is sent away from home to stay with an older aunt who runs a small general store and post office in an English village. The story takes place over several months, before she returns home.
The girl is very upset and homesick at first. She is also totally unused to doing anything for herself, and has no idea how to make a pot of tea, or make soft-boiled eggs.
Her aunt is kindly but strict and beds are made every morning, there’s dusting and sweeping to do, breakfast over and done with before the shop is opened. After a while the girl settles into the routine, learning lots of practical skills on the way, and also is entrusted to do deliveries of shop goods on occasion.
After several months with the aunt, she returns home to her parents and a new baby in the family. Presumably the mother had a difficult pregnancy and that’s why the girl was sent to stay with the aunt.
I’m pretty sure this was an Enid Blyton book, there’s a chance I could be wrong - though children separated from parents due to mother’s illness is a pretty common theme in her stories. The descriptiveness and the ‘inside the child mind’ perspective is also there.
I have a feeling that the book was written during the blitz in wartime, and was a conscious attempt to help children removed from their families to adjust to and cope with new and strange circumstances.

[pete9012S]

Jomo, the plotline reminds me a bit of Goodnight Mr Tom, but of course that cannot be the book you are thinking of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight ... Tom_(film)

There's also Carrie's War - Nina Bawden but I don't think that's the one either Jomo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie%27s_War

Regards

Pete

[Jomo]

Thanks Pete

You’re right, not these two!

I read this book in the early 60’s and it had a distinctly ‘vintage’ feel to it then. I was about 9-10 yo then and I felt that the protagonist was aged a little younger, maybe 7-8 years old.
The book did not specifically mention the war or the blitz, I just had a feeling that was the background to the story when I was reading it. I might have that wrong though!
However, just as the war is never overtly acknowledged in the Famous Five books, though the possibilities of espionage are one of the major themes in the series, so with this book about a child sent to live in a distant country village amongst strangers doesn’t overtly mention the situation of evacuee children, but emulates their circumstances neatly, including the underlying feelings of disruption, dislocation, and loneliness. The book was clearly intended by the author to be both reassuring and character building, to inculcate a sense of cooperation along with resilience, confidence and self-reliance. It had a masterful appreciation of common-sense child psychology. On the surface it’s a charming story about a child learning to fit in and maturing a bit in strange circumstances, but in truth it was much more than that.

[pete9012S]

Sounds like a good book Jomo - I bet someone here knows.
My money is on Daisy & Anita for starters!

As you know, Enid didn't write too much about the war - this is another guess, but I don't think it's correct either!!

During the war thousands of children were evacuated to the more remote and less targeted places around Britain. The bombing by the Third Reich devastated key areas of the country amongst which included Birmingham, Coventry, Plymouth, Manchester and especially London. It was common sense to evacuate the young people away from the action instead of having to make up beds on the platforms and the escalators of the underground railways. Two such evacuees were Tom and Sheila who were sent from London to live in the quieter surroundings of a village in Scotland. They found remoteness with a capital "R" because they ended up in Kidillin which could bring to mind a cosy little Scottish comunity such as the fictional Tannochbrae — only a good deal smaller. There are just three shops in Kidillin but plenty of hills and streams and heather and animals and the sea is only a few miles away where gulls can be seen rising high over the cliffs in the distance. Tom and Sheila arrive to be greeted by their cousins and hosts — Sandy and Jeanie MacLaren, together with a governess — Miss Mitchell.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/boo ... f+Kidillin

[Jomo]

I definitely haven’t read The Children of Kidillin - that’s one for the ‘must read’ list!

Thanks Pete!

I’ve found it on the Canadian site - originally published under the pseudonym of ‘Mary Pollock’

[Anita Bensoussane]

Sounds like a good book Jomo - I bet someone here knows.
My money is on Daisy & Anita for starters!

I don't know the book, I'm afraid, but I hope someone is able to help. It would be interesting to know what it is!

[shadow]

This sounds similar to a book by Patricia St John called Rainbow Garden. Although the child is sent to a family in the country as her mother has an amazing job offer so it might not be.

[Jomo]

Thanks Shadow,
Definitely not Rainbow Garden
I found a borrowable copy of that on archive.org;
https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780802465788

[pete9012S]

I'll tell you what Jomo - we may get some excellent book reading suggestions, even if we can't pin down your book!

[Jomo]

I ‘think’ I’ve remembered the name of the protagonist- I’m half sure it was ‘Mollie’ or ‘Molly’
I still have no idea of the title of the book.

[Katharine]

It does sound 'Blytonish', but I can't say it rings any bells with me either.

I hope you track down the story, it would be interesting to know who it was by if it wasn't Enid Blyton.

[Daisy]

At the moment I can't think of it either. It sounds like a good book!

[Courtenay]

I don't recognise it from your description either, Jomo, but it does sound like a good read! Hope you manage to track it down.

I have read The Children of Kidillin and can highly recommend it. A short but exciting adventure story, one of the very few of Enid's that are explicitly set during WW2 and make direct reference to it.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I'm afraid I still can't name the book but this thread always gives me a smile when I look at the list of topics on the board as the thread title is shortened to "Searching for a solo chap..."

[Boatbuilder]

I am wondering what you are looking at, Anita? All my visuals of the topic name show in full - even on the small iPhone screen as here in this screenshot of the list of topics.

However, I hope you manage to find him.