Goodnight Mister Tom

Michelle Magorian

juni 2010 · Penguin UK

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Tom tucked a blanket round him, drew up a chair by the fire and watched Willie fall asleep. The tales he had heard about evacuees didn't seem to fit Willie. 'Ungrateful' and 'wild' were the adjectives he had heard used, or just plain 'homesick'. He was quite unprepared for this timid, sickly little specimen.

Britain, 1940. With World War Two raging all around, young children are being sent from their homes in the city to the countryside for safety. When eight-year-old Willie Beech first arrives on Tom Oakley's doorstep, neither are quite sure what to make of each another.

Brought up in terrible poverty, Willie is terribly shy, and totally unprepared for village life - but the gruff-but-gentle 'Mister Tom' quickly takes him under his wing. Neither he nor Willie could ever have predicted the journey they will go on together - nor the unbreakable bond that will be formed.

Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, and rightly hailed as a true classic of children's literature, Goodnight Mister Tom is a beautifully told, deeply moving story about the power of friendship, kindness, hope - and love.

'Everyone's idea of a smash-hit novel: full-blown characters to love and hate, moments of grief and joy, and a marvellous story that knows just how to grab the emotions' - Guardian

Om författaren

By the time MICHELLE MAGORIAN was eleven she had decided that the perfect life would be to spend half the year acting and the other half writing. After attending the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance and Marcel Marceau's L'École Internationale de Mime in Paris, she wrote between acting jobs and on Sundays when rehearsing and performing musicals and plays six days and six nights a week (as Mikki Magorian). In her twenties she became interested in children's books and began writing Goodnight Mister Tom - a winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the International Reading Association Award. The musical version (composer Gary Carpenter) was a winner at the 1992 Quest Fest for New Musicals at Buxton Opera House. It has been adapted for television by Brian Finch and as a play by David Wood, broadcast as a radio series in Sweden and Norway, and been optioned by Gaumont for television. Michelle has written the book and lyrics for three more musicals and eight other novels, including award-winning Back Home and Just Henry, which won the Costa Award. She has recorded Back Home and A Little Love Song on Audible. Other audiobooks include Just Henry, read by the actor Richard Mitchley; and Goodnight Mister Tom, read by Christopher Saul for the RNIB (full version), and an abridged version read by Patrick Malahide. Michelle has a postgraduate certificate in Film Studies (London University/BFI), was awarded an honorary doctorate by Portsmouth University in 2007 and has been made a fellow by Rose Bruford College.