Pied Piper starts out innocently enough when elderly John Sidney Howard decides to take a fishing holiday to Jura in France in an attempt to distract himself from the recent death of his son, a pilot in the RAF. Unfortunately, his timing in taking such a trip is uncommonly bad considering that he chooses to take this outing during early World War II when Germany is poised to invade France. As the threat draws closer, Howard obliviously enjoys the peace and fishing that the tiny hamlet of Cidoton has to offer. While there, he makes the acquaintance of an English woman and her husband, an officer of the League of Nations working in nearby Switzerland, as well as their two small children. Before long, the German threat can no longer be ignored, and Howard knows that he must make for England before France is overtaken. In fear, the two parents plea with Howard to take their two children, Ronald and Sheila, to stay with relatives in England while they remain to face whatever may come. Howard agrees, and thus begins their dangerous and unusual journey. When Sheila falls ill and delays their departure, Howard finds himself escorting the children across a country fraught with danger and facing the distinct possibility that it may just be impossible to get out.

Pied Piper is such a rich story. Howard starts out with two children and a certitude that surely France couldn't be taken and ultimately ends up desperately fleeing occupied France largely on foot with a growing troop of lost children. Really, it's brilliant Shute's occupied France filled with German soldiers busy making war and conquering juxtaposed with Howard and seven children under the age of eleven, children who have hardly the faintest idea of the danger of what's going on. Shute plays off their innocence against one of the darkest times in history as the children plea to see the tanks and the planes, even at their peril, happily swim in a creek as the Germans populate the countryside, and keep enquiring as to whether they will soon be riding the train with the sleeper car when, for British children, riding in a train at all could be perilous.

The stolid, grey-faced Germans looked on mirthlessly, uncomprehending. For the first time in their lives they were seeing foreigners, displaying the crushing might and power of their mighty land. It confused them and perplexed them that their prisoners should be so flippant as to play games with their children in the corridor outside the very office of the Gestapo. It found the soft spot in the armour of their pride; they felt an insult which could not be properly defined. This was not what they had understood when their Fuhrer had last spoken from the Sport-Palast. This victor was not as they had thought it would be.

As the old man traverses France in search of the best or, really, any way out, the children he meets and takes under his wing all have their own heart-rending stories and reactions to their situations that cast a different sort of light on the events of World War II. Along the way, Howard not only manages to fill up the void of his own history by attempting to escort the future out of a war zone, but also is re-acquainted with someone who will ultimately help him reconcile his own feelings about the loss of his son.

Pied Piper is a beautiful story with so many dimensions that I couldn't hope to chronicle here, nor would I want to, and risk ruining the experience of this story for others. It deals with so many aspects of World War II and occupied France that I'd hardly considered before and all in a story that's so engrossing that you barely realize the power of its insight until after you've nearly passed it by. ( )

This story became a fabulous movie starring Monty Wooley as the shepherd with an unwanted group of children. I read the book because I loved the film, and I was not disappointed. This is the same Nevil Shute who wrote On The Beach, one of the best of the doomsday novels around. His A Town Like Alice is also very compelling. ( )

4260 Pied Piper, by Nevil Shute (read 17 Jan 2007) Sandy some time ago recommended I read this book so I finally got it through interlibrary loan. It is the sixth Shute book I have read:
3073 No Highway: A Novel, by Nevil Shute (read 6 May 1998)
3074 A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute (read 7 May 1998)
3078 On the Beach, by Nevil Shute (read 17 May 1998)
3726 Trustee from the Toolroom, by Nevil Shute (read 5 Apr 2003)
3735 Round the Bend A Novel by Nevil Shute (read 21 Apr 2003)
4260 Pied Piper, by Nevil Shute (read 17 Jan 2007)
and is one of the best. It tells of a 70-year-old Englishman who is taking two kids home to England in June of 1940. He picks up other kids as he wends his way thru occupied France, including a French girl and boy, a Dutch boy, a Jewish boy, and a German boy. He is such a good guy, so honorable, and he is so tried--and when one does not see how he can succeed, he does. I found it a very poignant story, especially toward the highly dramatic end. One of Shute's best, IMHO. ( )

A elderly Engilsh gentleman is caught in France as the Germans overrun the country. He tries to get out, and finds himself collecting children along the way. ( )