Waiting for Anya - Michael Morpurgo

...loving it, a friend thrust Waiting for Anya into my grubby mitts and forced me to read it. I thank her.

Jo lives in a small French village near the Spanish border. Life is hard while his father is away at war, as are all the able-bodied men of the village, and yet the war doesn't appear to otherwise affect the town, which plods on its merry way. The shepherding duties are still to be done, and they are down to 12-year-old Jo and his ...
...A Mockingbird.

Waiting for Anya is told in very straightforward language, in the third person. It reads smoothly and paces itself beautifully between the internal wonderings of Jo, a boy who feels keenly all the adolescent angst of relations with friends and family and is now forced to reconcile these into the context of wartime, and the thrilling, heart-stopping tale of Benjamin and his lost tribe. I feel it is no accident that there ... more

Michael Morpurgo, current Children's Laureate, is one of those children's authors that gets teachers and parents all aquiver and yet before I started this teacher training course I had never read a single word he had written. Halfway through Kensuke's Kingdom and loving it, a friend thrust Waiting for Anya into my grubby mitts and forced me to read it. I thank her.

Jo lives in a small French village near the Spanish border. Life is hard while his father is away at war, as are all the able-bodied men of the village, and yet the war doesn't appear to otherwise affect the town, which plods on its merry way. The shepherding duties are still to be done, and they are down to 12-year-old Jo and his grandfather, while his mother tends to the house. Then two things happen which turn Jo's life upside-down. First he discovers the Widow Horcada's Jewish son-in-law, Benjamin, is attempting to smuggle 12 Jewish refugee children into Spain... and then German forces arrive to occupy the village and patrol the border.

This is a stylistically simple, thematically rich and evocative little gem of a book. Delving into issues not often discussed in books about the war for children (the three or four most popular, such as Tom's Private War and Goodnight Mister Tom tend to focus on the evacuee angle), it is a beautifully written book that, although it was ultimately a children's book, finally put me in mind of that great adult's classic of complexity viewed through the eyes of a child: To Kill A Mockingbird.

Waiting for Anya is told in very straightforward language, in the third person. It reads smoothly and paces itself beautifully between the internal wonderings of Jo, a boy who feels keenly all the adolescent angst of relations with friends and family and is now forced to reconcile these into the context of wartime, and the thrilling, heart-stopping tale of Benjamin and his lost tribe. I feel it is no accident that there are 12 Jewish children (for the 12 tribes of Israel), nor that they are lead by Benjamin, the youngest of Jacob's sons. There is also young Leah, who attaches herself to Benjamin with all the zeal of a child who has found a replacement parent to those she has lost and is determined not to let him go. Leah's name too, is biblically significant, but I wouldn't want to go into the reasons for fear of spoilers.

The characterisation is, throughout, dignified and realistic. Characters can be predictable, yes, but so can people; none of the character traits that crop up are grating or cringeworthingly obvious. If I wanted to be harsh, I could argue that there is little that is original in the content: we have the village half-wit, the confused German officer (Corelli's Gunter Weber in character), the embittered veteran, the idealist youthful dreamer and the spry old man. But was IS original is the gentle and skillful way in which they are woven together to make a moving, gripping drama that is accessible to children but fluently and intelligently written enough for adults to be moved and take pleasure in reading this to or with their children.

Benjamin and Jo meet on a hillside in bizarre and confusing circumstances, and it is Jo who becomes the central pivot between the German officer who is proving to be a human being after all and the bearded stranger collecting children to save as he waits desperately for the return of his daughter, Anya, who disappeared along with her mother in the desperate situation. All the time, Jo's confusion and hatred and love rage under the surface, an emotional turmoil that is only exacerbated by the fact that he is both wanting his father to return and trying to step into his shoes. Shades of Anne Frank undergoing the rites of adolescent passage in extraordinary circumstances with conflicting ideals can be discerned now and again, pulling the threads of resonance through the book and tightening as the heart-stoppingly tense ending comes into view.

The plot is pacy but also has moments of slow, lyrical description. There is a smooth and constant fluctuation and intermingling of local personal conflicts and national crisis, and the strained relationships within the village are indicative of where the tide is flowing, with or against Jo. There's not denying that this is essentially a tense and tragic book, but it also contains strong messages of hope, dignity and courage without any false or cloying sentimentality, but with a genuine admiration for the steel strength of spirit shown by many in difficult times.

I don't actually want to say too much about this book because the tensions of the plot really should be approached for the first time without too much prior knowledge. Too much familiarity does drain some of the surprising beauty of this bittersweet tale. It is suitable for children from about age 9, but I think many an adult would find its simplicity and tenderness moving. There is the grit of reality mixed with, especially in the latter stages of the book, the magical touch that anyone reading Morpurgo comes to expect from him. An excellent Year 6 class novel and interesting and intelligent bedtime reading, I strongly recommend all 200-odd pages of this little gem.

At five stars, this is a beg, borrow or steal for kids, folks.

Publishing details:
Paperback published August 2001 by Mammoth
ISBN 0749746882
Amazon price is £4.99 new, £2.99 used.

Thanks for reading.

Alex
xxx 

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