Stay Where You Are And Then Leave

I will read anything that John Boyne writes, even if it's a grocery list. He is one of those rare authors who is able to put just the right words to define his characters and the plot thoroughly. This wonderful little book is no exception.

Alfie Summerfield is an only child living in London with his loving parents when he turns 5 years old at the beginning of WWI. When his dad volunteers to enlist, his mother is frightened, and Alfie is lost without his dad. Four years later, the war is still raging when Alfie learns that his dad is not on a "secret mission" as his mother explained for the absence of letters from him. He is suffering from shell shock in a hospital not far from London.

Alfie is determined to rescue his dad with surprising show more results. This is a heartbreaking, heartwarming book about love told from the perspective of a child. show less

STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE is a tenderly written historical novel examining one family's experience during World War I (1914-1918). What sets it apart from others I've read is that this one is written from a child's point of view. Less than 250 pages, I'd award 4.5 stars if I could.

The novel begins on July 28, 1914, the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia, Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated, the event that launched World War I. But the book's beginning is focused on the birthday party of Alfie Summerfield, a five-year-old boy living in London with his loving parents Margie and Georgie. The family lives in a tight-knit community where everyone looks out for one another.

It's not long before Georgie volunteers for show more military service, eager to demonstrate his patriotism and be part of the coming grand adventure. Margie and Alfie don't want him to go but everyone is certain the war will be over by Christmas.

Author John Boyne (one of my favorites) shows us all the ways family life changes once Georgie leaves. Margie must find work. Adult supervision of Alfie lessens. Rationing changes what Margie and Alfie consume. Neighbors come under suspicion. Several disappear. Money is tight. The content in Georgie's letters changes and those letters come less frequently. By the time four years pass, Margie must reluctantly hide some of what she knows in order to protect her son.

Alfie is now nine. Unusual circumstances allow him to discover some information about his father and Alfie puts his own "rescue" plan into effect.

I have read many novels about the First World War. Although I believe STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE is designated as young adult fiction, I did not find the book overly simplistic in any way. It's the first novel about the war that I've read that is written from a child's viewpoint. And that allowed me to consider a new dimension to the war.

Boyne skillfully shows how the inherent innocence characteristic of a young child's world view affect the reactions he has and the actions he takes. Alfie's fierce love for his parents motivates his every move, even though his age keeps him from fully anticipating the consequences of his actions. It is both pitiful and endearing to see how desperately Alfie wants his family to return to pre-war normal. A very powerful story that is likely to alter your thoughts about war! show less

STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE is a tenderly written historical novel examining one family's experience during World War I (1914-1918). What sets it apart from others I've read is that this one is written from a child's point of view. Less than 250 pages, I'd award 4.5 stars if I could.

The novel begins on July 28, 1914, the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia, Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated, the event that launched World War I. But the book's beginning is focused on the birthday party of Alfie Summerfield, a five-year-old boy living in London with his loving parents Margie and Georgie. The family lives in a tight-knit community where everyone looks out for one another.

It's not long before Georgie volunteers for show more military service, eager to demonstrate his patriotism and be part of the coming grand adventure. Margie and Alfie don't want him to go but everyone is certain the war will be over by Christmas.

Author John Boyne (one of my favorites) shows us all the ways family life changes once Georgie leaves. Margie must find work. Adult supervision of Alfie lessens. Rationing changes what Margie and Alfie consume. Neighbors come under suspicion. Several disappear. Money is tight. The content in Georgie's letters changes and those letters come less frequently. By the time four years pass, Margie must reluctantly hide some of what she knows in order to protect her son.

Alfie is now nine. Unusual circumstances allow him to discover some information about his father and Alfie puts his own "rescue" plan into effect.

I have read many novels about the First World War. Although I believe STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE is designated as young adult fiction, I did not find the book overly simplistic in any way. It's the first novel about the war that I've read that is written from a child's viewpoint. And that allowed me to consider a new dimension to the war.

Boyne skillfully shows how the inherent innocence characteristic of a young child's world view affect the reactions he has and the actions he takes. Alfie's fierce love for his parents motivates his every move, even though his age keeps him from fully anticipating the consequences of his actions. It is both pitiful and endearing to see how desperately Alfie wants his family to return to pre-war normal. A very powerful story that is likely to alter your thoughts about war! show less

John Boyne’s Stay Where You Are and Then Leave is an absolute gem of a book. It’s being marketed as a YA novel, but don’t let that fool you. This is a book that will reward readers of all ages, one that’s definitely going on the “essentials” shelf.

I don’t want to say too much about the contents because I don’t want to spoil them for you, but I do want to say enough to convince you that this is a book you should track down and read—and soon!

Alfie Summerfield is five when his father volunteers for the British Army at the start of World War I. He’s an interesting, quirky kid, with a child’s sense of time: “Georgie and Margie [Alfie's parents] had been very old when they got married—he [Alfie] knew that much. His show more dad had been almost twenty-one and his mum was only a year younger.”

At first, Alfie’s father writes regularly, but then the letters stop coming. Alfie’s mum tells Alfie his dad is on a secret mission, but Alfie grow less and less sure of her honesty as his father’s absence grows more extended. Is his father dead? If he’s on a secret mission, what sort of mission is it?

Alfie and his mum quickly become “perilously close to penury,” as she puts it. She works double shifts at a hospital, waking him before she leaves for work in the morning. Sitting alone eating his breakfast each day, Alfie props the newspaper up in font of him as he remembers his dad doing, but he’s only interested in one kind of news:

[H]e did what he always did in the morning. He turned to page four to read the numbers. The numbers of deaths on our side. The number of deaths on their side. The number of wounded. But there was only one number Alfie really cared about: 14278. His dad’s number. The number they’d assigned him when he signed up.

Now the man of the family, Alfie (who ages from five to nine years old over the course of the novel) cuts school and spends four days a week at King’s Cross Station shining shoes in order to make a few pennies to slip into his mother’s purse. But he never cuts school on Monday or Thursday—those are History day and Reading day, his two favorite subjects.

Alfie’s losses extend beyond his missing father and less-present mum: his best friend Kalena and her father are deported to the Isle of Man as enemy aliens because they come from Prague; Alfie’s father’s best friend Joe is first jailed, then regularly assaulted once he returns home, for being a Conshie, a Conscientious Objector; lots of young men leave the neighborhood, never to return. Alfie understand what is meant when a friendly passenger on a train comments on his age: “you’ll be ten soon enough, I imagine. Nine-year-old boys usually turn ten at some point. It’s the nineteen-year-olds who have difficulty turning twenty.”

The writing in Stay Where You Are is deceptively simple, communicating complexities in ways that will be clear to younger readers and intellectually satisfying to older ones. This isn’t a book that ends “happily ever after,” but it doesn’t rob readers of all sense of hope. People fail one another, but they do their best. They have courage to change as they see their own actions in different lights. “Less bad” is better than “more bad,” even if it isn’t “good.”

This book is being released in the U.S. on March 25 (it’s also been published in the UK). Look for a copy, read it, pass it on to a younger (or older) friend. You’ll have much to talk about as you share Alfie’s attempts to understand—and to affect—the adult world that he sees around him. show less

This is such a powerful story, set in WWI before we had a name for PTSD or Shell Shock this book takes you to a hospital with one doctor who is trying to get people to realize this is an actual condition not men just being cowardly. But how we get to that hospital is a heartbreaking yet uplifting story told through the eyes of 9 year old Alfie who is in search of his father Georgie.

Alfie is a precocious 9 year old who misses his father it has been 4 years since he went off to war and Alfie’s mother won’t let him see the letters he is writing but Alfie finds a way but notices there hasn’t been a letter in a long time, his mother tells him his dad is on a secret mission but Alfie is not sure he believes that. Alfie has been helping show more out by shining shoes at Kings Cross Station ( unbeknownst to his mother) and one day a man drops some papers and as Alfie helps him pick them up he sees his dads name and the name of a hospital so he sets off to find his dad.

This story is at times heartbreaking, uplifting and powerful, seeing it through Alfie’s eyes really brings home the separation of war, the not knowing if your parent is alive or well and how the parent left behind wants to protect their child from knowing the gory details of war but that leaves Alfie to think his father is dead. When Alfie does find his father it will break your heart and Alfie’s innocence in thinking if he just comes home he will be okay leads to circumstances that make Alfie have to confront just what shell shock is and how the war affected his father.

Euan Morton narrates this book with skill, his narration of Alfie is spot on and you feel every emotion he feels. Every character has a voice and the parts with the banging how Morton brings Georgie’s emotion to the forefront are amazing. Highly recommend this on audio!

The author does a great job at making you feel everything Alfie feels the fear, the trepidation, the confusion all written so beautifully.

4 ½ Stars

I received this book from netgally but ended up listening to the audio version and am so glad I did! show less

This book touched a chord with me. Although it takes place in World War I, I felt memories return to me at the same age as Alfie; mine from World War II. John Boyne is spot on with this story and has a fantastic ability to recreate this time period and the horrors that went with it, without losing sight of his youthful audience. This book is suggested for the 9 to 12 year range, but I believe it would be interesting to a wider range.

Alfie is an only child and has just had his fifth birthday as the story begins. This is his story, but also the story of all London where suddenly all the Dads are off to war, Mothers off to work and/or taking in work and children left alone. Alfie's best friend Kalena Janacek and her father have been sent show more away to the Isle of Wight to an internment camp, his Dad Georgie is at war and his Dad's best friend Joe as a conscientious objector, a conchie as they call him, is dragged off to jail and badly beaten. All life as he knew it is changed, and changed him with it.

Alfie decides he should do his part, too, so he takes Mr. Janacek's shoeshine kit and starts working at the train station, skipping school three days a week. This is a tale of survival, constant fear and worry, death, innovation and love of family. When letters no longer come from Georgie, Alfie's father, he believes the worst. His mother tries to ease his fears by telling him he can't write because he is on a secret mission but Alfie doesn't believe her.

Chance is a strange thing. While Alfie, now nine, is shining the shoes of a well-dressed man at the station, a wind happens to gust through the station and catch all the papers the man is holding. Alfie rushes to collect them all and chances to see his father listed as a patient at a hospital in England. From this point on the story veers as Alfie plots to see his father. This story is very well-written, compelling and compassionate, as much as a coming of age story. Alfie's complicated plans are admirable if ill-conceived. In a four year period, many things can change, and especially with children, who always seem to grow up too soon, but during war often become grown up through necessity as Alfie did. With love, though, anything is possible. show less

"De strijd was losgebarsten op 28 juli 1914. Anderen herinnerden zich die dag misschien niet zo precies, maar Alfie zou het nooit vergeten omdat het zijn verjaardag was. Hij was die dag vijf geworden."

Vanaf dit moment zie je het verhaal door de ogen van een klein ventje genaamd Alfie Summerfield. Het personage is heel aandoenlijk, slim en lief. De schrijver weet dit op een heel aantrekkelijke manier vorm te geven. Door precies als een kind te redeneren en alles vanuit zijn perspectief te bekijken, wordt het verhaal minder complex voor de lezer.

Wat dit verhaal anders maakt dan andere oorlogsverhalen is het feit dat je niet bezig bent met allerlei veldslagen, maar vooral met hoe het thuisfront omgaat met het verdriet en de armoede. Hoe ga show more je om met een vader die naar het front is gestuurd? Hoe kom je rond in de oorlog? Dit zijn vragen waarop wordt ingegaan. Dit maakt het boek wel minder spectaculair maar nog steeds boeiend om te lezen.

Het boek is zeer ingetogen geschreven waardoor het misschien minder aantrekkelijk is voor kinderen van 12 jaar oud. Er zit weinig actie in en meer emotie met achterliggende gedachten. Dit maakt het soms wat moeilijk om te volgen.

Ondanks dat dit boek niet vol met actie en spanning zit, leer je wel wat onvoorwaardelijke liefde is en zie je de kracht van een jongeman die zich staande probeert te houden in de grotemensenwereld. show less